Following a return of four points from their recent travels around northern England, Hereford FC are back home tomorrow, kick off 3pm, for a juicily winnable match against fellow strugglers Curzon Ashton.
A win would see ‘the double double’ achieved, following last Saturday’s plucky win at Blyth and the only other away win this season back in mid-August, against tomorrow’s visitors. If that exciting prospect doesn’t bring back a few hundred of those who have recently gone missing from Edgar Street nothing will, frankly.
That narrow 1-0 win in the third match of the season came courtesy of a goal from now-departed Harry White. At the time of writing, there's still no news of an out-and-out striker being brought in who could offer the finishing ability that White hinted at having, although in often being isolated and starved of service had scant opportunity to demonstrate.
Since then of course wholesale changes have been made on and off the pitch, but after a trying few months for all concerned there are signs that performances, confidence and even luck are beginning to return, although the current four-match unbeaten run has included three draws, one of them particularly disappointing.
It’s still not totally clear whether coach Marc Richards is tinkering with starting formations in trying to find something that definitively works best, or whether in alternating between a 4-4-2, a 3-3-2-2 or a 5-4-3-2-1 (actually that might work!) he’s being shrewdly adaptable in responding to where the opposition’s threat is likely to come from. Whichever it is, the players are, in the main, coping well with being asked to perform in a variety of positions and formations each week - not something that’s always the case with footballers.
So, it remains to be seen what he’ll go with tomorrow, but the three centre backs performed well on Saturday, so perhaps something akin to what was chosen against Blyth will be repeated.
A cynic may suggest that Kieran Thomas’s withdrawal at half time against Blyth was more to do with him having his back up rather than putting his back out, and he’d therefore be expected to start in midfield. If fellow midfielders Eliot Richards and Tom Owen-Evans can continue in the form they've been in of late the home side should carry enough threat to cause Curzon problems. James Waite comes in on loan from Cardiff to bolster that attacking threat, whether out wide or playing off Mike Symons more centrally, if, that is, he starts at all.
The Nash go into this one in form, having won four of their last five, so it was perhaps a little unfair of me to describe them as 'fellow strugglers' above! If they can continue in the same vein they'll comfortably surpass their 18th-placed finish of last season. Ahead of this one, goalkeeper Cameron Mason and defender Oliver Thornley both signed new deals which will see them at the club until 2020.
In the reverse fixture, they looked to counter-attack and did so with some aplomb, and less admirably also looked to 'manage' the referee whenever possible. Let's hope for an official with a bit of backbone. That counter-attacking ability has undoubtedly contributed to their strong away record in winning half of their away matches to date.
Admittedly, apart from a certain Antipodean loan signing, this is the same squad of players that came up short last time at home against a hapless Nuneaton side enduring a torrid season on and off the pitch, but perhaps that was the lowest ebb of a tide that’s taken a very long time to do its thing, and we can now look forward to a strong surge to mid-table respectability over the course of the rest of the season. A win would reinforce that notion, and a loss would, well it would be really rubbish, so let's just say it won’t happen.
Finally, after I mentioned the need a few weeks ago for a striker who could score ten-or-so goals between now and the end of the season (oooh aren’t I insightful), Jimmy Oates would have been some way behind, I dunno, Ringo Starr or someone, on the list of likely candidates. Funny old game.
COYW