A week in which the Hereford FC
goals for and against columns read for: 15, against: 3 would normally be a
cause for celebration. However, those cold, hard statistics are effectively lies,
damned lies, with the Bulls yet again conceding three goals away from home, this time at
Southport on Tuesday, following their earlier training exercise win over Hinton.
The Bulls’ back line was terrorised in embarrassing fashion in the northwest by
nothing more sophisticated than route-one missiles into the box.
So, defensively, everything positive
seems to have gone missing, at least for a club with top-half ambitions,
because if you concede three away from home every time you’re not much cop,
obvs. However, glossing over that like a cowboy painter and decorator sploshing
his brush through a tricky cobwebby corner, results have generally been better
at home this season, even if performances haven’t exactly been Oscar-winning,
so it’s with some relief that the Bulls are back at Edgar Street on Saturday,
kick off 3pm and weather permitting, playing host to Alfreton Town.
New signing Stephen Dawson made
his debut on Tuesday, and if all goes well with his fitness he looks like he
could potentially be hugely influential in dragging this squad into a more
consistent place performance-wise and thus into the play-offs. He could admittedly do with some help,
preferably in the form of a central defender and striker of similar pedigree,
so hopefully Russell Slade can pull another couple of rabbits out of the hat on
that front, although things must be getting seriously tight budget-wise by now.
Jordan Nicholson will hopefully
be back after missing the Southport match through injury, but regrettably it’s
thought that the signing of Jordan Henderson as vaguely soundalike cover may
stretch that budget to breaking point. Jordan Nicholenderson, whilst affordable,
doesn’t exist.
Alfreton are having a solid
season to date. They sit handily in fifth position, but have lost three of
their last five games. So far on their travels they've lost to Kettering but also thrashed Guiseley.
At home they’ve beaten Bradford and Southport, recent beneficiaries of Hereford’s
basket-case travel sickness. However (clutching at straws time), they’ve only
drawn one of their 14 matches, and looked encouragingly leaky last time out,
losing 4-2 at home to Farsley Celtic, so given that another Whites loss is
inconceivable/intolerable this is more or less a home banker, one that will at
least partially erase all the yukky recent memories of fallibility, fragility
and…other ‘f’ words.
Possibly further demonstrating
the paucity of quality in the division this year, the high-flying Reds only
finished a couple of points ahead of a very poor Hereford last season, although
the Bulls took four points from the instantly forgettable matches between the
two sides. The visitors’ recent form could indicate that they’re on their way
back down to that sort of position and have fluked their start. If so (straws
again – why not?), that further suggests that this will be a 6-0 cakewalk for
the home team, flicks and tricks all over the place and a confidence booster to
bounce the club onto a run that sees a pair of matches against Notts County
rather than Curzon Ashton being served up by the fixture computer next season. No?
OK, fair enough, you’ve been to a match recently, but you never know, and you
wouldn’t want to miss it when it comes.
It really is high time the
Bulls put in a bit of a performance if they’re going to convince supporters
that next spring could provide some play-off excitement. Saturday afternoon
attendances have to date held up surprisingly well, but a good win in this one
might just persuade some of those who have recently stayed away to come back.
Something needs to fund that new central defender and striker after all, and
another loss could well leave the club below Gloucester, and despite having
spent a few very happy years living near Stroud I still refuse to acknowledge that, generally speaking, there’s
life below Gloucester.
COYW
