It’s tempting to wish that
Hereford FC could have this weekend ‘off sick’, such has been the battering
everyone linked to the club has suffered over the last month or so. However, I
don’t suppose the National League would look kindly on such a move, so a trip
to Edgeley Park, Stockport looks to be on the cards tomorrow.
On the plus side, surely the
Bulls will contrive to at least score a goal sometime soon, and the arrival on
loan of highly rated Cheltenham striker George Lloyd can only help in that
respect. It could perhaps spark dormant volcanoes Marlon Jackson and Harry
White into life too. However, it shows how bad things have got in such a short
period of time that so many hopes hang on the shoulders of an 18-year-old
Cheltenham Town striker.
Also, thinking positively, for
the first time in a while Hereford face a side who aren’t absolutely flying. The Hatters, unarguably the biggest club in the division, are only four points above Hereford in 11th position. Last
season they once again performed below the expectations of their fans, and
below what a club of their size and resources should be able to achieve,
finishing fifth and falling short in the play-offs.
It wasn’t too long ago that
they were playing in the Championship (then the old First Division) of course,
largely courtesy of big Kevin Francis’s battering ram effect up front, and turning
the fortunes of the club around really is becoming a long-term project. It just
goes to show how hard it is these days to claw your way back to the Football
League when so many previously tiny clubs have such financial heft behind them
to launch a multi-promotion ascent of the slippery slope.
So, even though the Bulls’
confidence is utterly shredded, there could be some scope to exploit cracks in
the home team’s own self-belief too, perhaps by actually scoring first for once
and silencing the crowd.
Incidentally, where, one wonders,
is our own budding Kevin Francis in Shobdon, in Ewyas Harold, in Wellington
Heath? He can’t be hiding under a bushel because he’d be gigantically tall, but
even if he was unearthed we’d have to
start ‘going direct’, which wouldn’t go down well with some I suppose.
Anyway, back to matters at hand. On
the minus side, which unfortunately is the side with much more to be said about
it at the moment, the team of late has been at best hesitant and at worst
playing with fear and then resignation, seemingly accepting defeat as an
inevitability when going behind. This is hardly surprising of course, given the
long run of awful form following the off-the-field upheaval, but it’s been
difficult, certainly over the course of the last three matches, to detect an
escape route from that downward spiral.
With the Bulls bottom of the form table
after losing five of their last six league matches, mustering just two goals
(one a penalty) and conceding 13 in the process, it has to be hoped that new
head coach Marc Richards is the key to that escape route. He’s now had a bit of
time with the players to make his mark, assess who’s worth a starting place,
who should be on the bench, and who he needs to release in order to streamline
the squad in line with director of football Tim Harris’s stated policy, so
supporters will be looking tomorrow for any positives they can find from the
influence of the new management team.
Mike McGrath is suspended for
this one, and Martin Horsell is still struggling with the after-effects of his
concussion from last Saturday, so loanee Matt Yates comes in from
Derby, along with his club mate Ethan Wassall, and if that name rings a bell he is indeed Darren's son! If any other of the promised new faces
are to come in for this match, they’re as yet unannounced.
Whether Richards can turn things
round quickly is open to debate, but even if it takes a while there’s plenty of
the season left before a relegation battle really needs to be considered a
reality.
It’s been unremittingly grim
recently, everyone knows that, but surely, surely
some light at the end of the tunnel will be glimpsed soon, and not the light of
an oncoming train. Perhaps tomorrow’s the day. That’s the most upbeat I can
manage for now.
COYW