Alive and kicking

Hereford FC host Marine on Tuesday night in a drab end-of-season encounter with nothing riding on it for either side.

No, of course it’s not that, it’s massive, again, and yet another nailbiter. This is exhausting!

The Bulls kept their survival hopes alive with the required win against Radcliffe on Saturday, but need to do exactly the same here to maximise their chances of escaping relegation on Saturday. The club once more controls its own destiny, in that winning each of the remaining two games will be enough. Sounds easy, but if those 180+ minutes run entirely without a hitch it’ll be something of a (very pleasant) surprise.

Marine had an excellent start to the season and were fifth when this match was originally scheduled. They’ve slipped since then, and with perfect timing this is the first game where they officially have nothing to play for but pride, and comes off the back of two consecutive defeats. They’ve lost six of their last eight games, and lost to a last-gasp Alfreton goal on Saturday. They don’t tend to draw away from home and they’re in no way prolific scorers. Dare I say that their profile very closely matches Radcliffe’s going into this game.

Just a fortnight ago, Hereford held on to win 1-0 against them on Merseyside, and doing the double here will put the hosts in a strong position on Saturday to beat the drop, given some of the tricky assignments their relegation rivals are up against, and the home game Hereford have against Peterborough, who will make the trip having lost 8-0 last weekend. That’s not to say Saturday’s not going to be incredibly nervy though, even if three points are secured against Marine. Exactly the same application and energy will have to go into that final game, with no feeling that the job has been done and that it’s a gimme. It won’t be.

The only result contemplatable here is the home win of course, but just for the record a draw wouldn’t condemn the Bulls to the Southern League, but a loss would. The club is still on very thin ice.

Aaron Skinner will be required to keep Marine’s big threat Fin Sinclair-Smith quiet. The diminutive ex-Radcliffe left-winger is having a fruitful season and will give the Hereford defence plenty to think about. The Hereford right back was preferred in that position on Saturday to Joseph James, with Matt Preston coming back into central defence. An unchanged line-up - injuries, aches and pains permitting - looks likely.

The bench will see a change though, as Harrison Sohna will be suspended for this game as a result of his pivotal sending off last Tuesday against Oxford. Lawson Dath will hopefully be fit enough to start again in the middle of the park alongside Freddy Willcox.

George Munday seems to have rediscovered his goalscoring form at just the right time, and the whole ground bar 30-or-so Liverpudlians will be praying that the 19-year-old can add to his ten for the season here, preferably with another early goal.

Collectively on Saturday the side did very well to tough it out against Radcliffe when necessary, but not to descend to their bafflingly unpleasant level, and crucially no-one in a white shirt got sent off. Marine should be more up for an actual game of football, but hopefully up for it in quite a wishy-washy end-of-season way.

A beautiful, bright spring evening is forecast, which brings to mind that wonderful May night against Morecambe in the Conference play-off semi-final which feels quite recent but was probably a thousand years ago. Just checked – 20 years ago – gulp. This game is of the same magnitude.

The same outcome delivered in slightly more straightforward fashion in front of similarly boisterous home support would be something worthy of adding to the Edgar Street scrapbook, a ground whose rustingly adorable fixtures and fittings have witnessed some cracking evenings over the years. Can George Munday play the Guy Ipoua role? Why not; he just needs to adopt a French accent and the inability to walk past the front door of a certain city wine bar. Oh, and score a very important goal.

Back then, received wisdom when winning the toss was to attack the Meadow End in the second half. Under Aaron Downes the approach seems to be to go down the slope in the first half and attempt to build an unassailable lead early. Given how often the Bulls have had attempt to claw their way back into games in the second half this season that seems sensible, and is paying dividends. It would be nice to think that this can be put to bed in the first half courtesy of a blizzard of irresistible attacking football from the home side, with the visitors defending like rabbits trapped in headlights. Admittedly rabbits not trapped in headlights wouldn’t be much good at defending either, but you know what I mean.

If this group of players can pull this survival off it’ll be an achievement to match any in the short history of the phoenix club, and they’ll deservedly be very fondly remembered by supporters for a very long time.

Is this finally to be a Tuesday night that ends jubilantly? Surely it has to be. Will this season finally deliver something over the next five days to have made the pain of August to mid-April worth the suffering? Hopefully. Will Madou Cisse come off the bench to score the winning goal here? No.

COYW