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Make it eleven defeats
A short preview of today's games from The Times by Walter Gammie.
IN THEIR ten previous visits to Edgar Street, Aldershot Town and Aldershot, the club from whose ashes Town rose after they folded in 1992, have come away from matches against Hereford United empty-handed. The time has come, they believe, to stop the rot in the second leg of the Nationwide Conference play-offs semi-final this afternoon.
Aldershot go into the tie level at 1-1 with their memories fresh from a performance in the first leg in which they showed that they had the ability to trouble Hereford both through their set-pieces and fluent passing.
By the same token Hereford are determined not to let a season go to waste in which they finished only one point behind Chester City, the champions who won automatic promotion, and 21 points ahead of Aldershot, who came fifth. They hope that Steve Guinan, their top scorer with 29 goals this season, who has been missing for the past fortnight with a cricked neck, can play some part in the match.
The clubs’ last meeting at Edgar Street, in August, ended 4-3 to Hereford, David Brown scoring a late winner after Aldershot had been 2-0 up inside ten minutes.
Barnet take a 2-1 lead from the first leg to their match away to Shrewsbury Town, refusing to be distracted by speculation about the future of Paul Fairclough, who took over as manager after the departure of Martin Allen to Brentford in March.
The winners of today’s matches, which will be decided by a silver goal in extra time and then penalties if necessary, will meet in the final at the Britannia Stadium, Stoke, on Sunday week.