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“A rejuvenated Aaron Skinner made a difference when coming on at the weekend as a substitute. I’ve got an odd and persistent feeling that he’ll score a very important goal at some point before the end of the season.”
Hereford v Oxford Bulls News match preview 14 April 2026
…just saying, like.
And so this remarkable season approaches its end, with a final-day game of huge importance. It felt like this might happen weeks ago didn’t it.
It’s been an exhausting few weeks, and I swear I’ve seen primary school-aged kids at games with grey hair. However, if Hereford can win this last game they’re safe, and can start building for a much more successful 2026/27.
The forecast is for blue skies and 20 degrees, which hopefully doesn’t mean it’ll be broken up into quarters (although that seems to happen informally anyway now regardless of the weather). It would be intensely irritating if any mid-half interval comes at a point when the hosts are building momentum.
There should be a starting place for Keziah Martin here, with Harrison Sohna suspended and Lawson Dath clearly not quite fully fit, which will be richly deserved after the Bermudan’s contribution as a substitute on Tuesday. He’ll line up in midfield with Freddy Willcox, without whom I’d suggest the club would already be down, and as such the Cheltenham loanee would get my player of the season vote.
Tuesday’s goal should add even more bounce to Cormac Daly’s already considerable bounciness, and he’s another young player whose attitude since he arrived, not to mention his talent, have been a joy to watch.
Andy Williams will be incredibly keen to end the season with a goal, but he’ll presumably have to come off the bench again later in the game to get it. We’ll possibly never see him again in a playing capacity after this. Legend.
The visitors are a tiny club who have done fantastically well over the last few seasons in holding their own at this level. There was some talk about them considering going full time. On crowds of 300ish that appeared to be brave, but it’s the sort of thing that’s stopped being a surprise. Given that they’ve now ceased to hold their own at this level and will be playing in the Southern League next season, those plans have presumably been shelved.
Their record at Edgar Street is very good (W2 D1 L0). Those performances were based on the continuity and togetherness of their squad following multiple back-to-back promotions to reach the National League North, but they sacked co-manager/player Michael Gash, something of a club talisman, a month into this season. He was absolutely superb at Edgar Street last season in marshalling the defence and masterminding a draw.
Ex-Kiddie boss Phil Brown was appointed as his replacement. He fell short in his ‘keep them up’ mission, just as he did with his ‘get them up’ requirement at Harriers last season, after an initial bounce in taking Sports from bottom to two points clear of the relegation places, but that was the high point, and they’ve been doomed for some time. That’s despite Gash coming back in as manager in early March and Brown ‘moving upstairs’.
They lost their main goal threat Michael Gyasi last summer, and their goals have instead come from 20-year-old midfielder Luca Miller. He’s scored 13 from central midfield, an impressive contribution given the season they’ve had.
Elliott Whitehouse and Zach Willis called time on their seasons in getting sent off in the 8-0 drubbing at Worksop last Saturday. They’ll be suspended for this.
That was goalie MacKenzie Chapman’s first game for the club having only arrived on loan from Salford the day before. You’d imagine he’ll be motivated to set the record straight, or straighter, here with a clean sheet, although he could still be shellshocked and liable to let another bucketload in.
Talking of disciplinary matters, hopefully the FA will tell refs at ref camp in the summer (presumably that’s where refs go in the summer) to issue a yellow card to any goalscorer who celebrates in front of opposing fans in an unnaturally elongated manner or in a manner otherwise designed to cause bother. It used to be done by a handful of designated villains each season, or Southport collectively, but now everyone’s at it. It seems a good deal more potentially bothersome to me than a player taking their shirt off. In fact my wife didn’t seem at all bothered when Ryan Green took his off at Leicester.
If you turn up at 3pm you’ll miss the game as it’s a 12:30 kick off, an inconvenience amply compensated by the 50p or so the club gets from DAZN TV each season.
This is of course no time for negativity, but a repeat of Tuesday’s performance could very well turn this into a scrap and a slog rather than a smooth win, in which case turning up at 3pm would avoid going through an awful lot of angst. Fans will be keen to see the Bulls backing themselves to win this with passing football rather than nervy long balls.
A 4,500 crowd will give the club a nice payday, and will go some way towards covering the contracts of Aaron Downes and Harry Pell for next season if the win is secured. A draw could also be enough, but a loss would see Hereford FC relegated.
Finally, a big thank you to everyone who has read these previews this season – it’s not been great, but Tuesday night was a reminder of why we do it. Now it’s time to put the icing on the cake with a nice comfortable win on Saturday, and the cherry on top would be a Willo goal.
See you in August, hopefully still at the same level.
COYW