Telford at home then on Saturday as a trying season starts to peter to a halt,
and the police at least seem to think that the visitors will break the mould
and actually for once bring a few supporters with them.
In the olden days this was
always a fixture Hereford United seemed to do well in, home and away, but these
days a dour, instantly forgettable draw is probably the most one can hope for,
and to be told afterwards it was somehow a point earned, the players are
listening to what we’re telling them, the form table doesn’t lie etc. I thought
Pravda used to be good at black is white propaganda way back when, but phewee.
Telford is one of the UK’s ‘new
towns’, built really recently by noted civil engineer Thomas Telford, who also
built the Menai Strait, separating Anglesey from the Welsh mainland forever just because he
felt like it one Thursday afternoon when he didn’t have much else on. He was
that kind of maverick. The intention was for the town to absorb the poor and
the naughty from neighbouring Shrewsbury, and as such its population rose from
zero to 200,000 overnight. To this day, no-one really knows how or why the town
got its name.
Telford have dodged relegation
bullets regularly in National League North since their last fall from what was then called the
Conference, but this season has seen a resurgence, and they’ve been in and
around the play-off spots since August.
The Bucks currently sit in the
final play-off position, and a win on Saturday would keep a resurgent Blyth at bay
as the Shropshire side bid to return to what isn't any longer called the Conference for the first time since
2014/15.
Following three draws, which gave supporters cause for concern in
terms of the promotion push, they won last time against Curzon Ashton. In Gavin
Cowan, who has just signed a two-year contract with the club, they seem to have
a dynamic and progressive coach. Striker Daniel ‘Uh-oh’ Udoh has scored 26
times this season, so quite a lot more on his own than the combined tally of
the 'strikers' Hereford have used.
As for the Bulls, last weekend’s
vapid capitulation to a Southport team previously recently incapable of buying a
win doesn’t suggest that the uncontracted players are actually that
bothered about, or capable of, playing for a contract for next season, and doesn’t suggest that
tomorrow’s match will be a particularly edifying spectacle, with the home team
sitting deep and the away team trying to win. Unfortunately it’s come to this
in a Hereford v Telford game at Edgar Street.
The club sits in 17th
position, which is somewhat flattering given that the bottom three this season
have been unusually bad, and it’s worth reiterating that Hereford have won none
in six against that hapless bottom three, although some awful draws against
them contributed to the unbeaten run recently that was claimed in some quarters as something to
be prized.
A Cold War-era Pravda editorial written by
Chemical Ali would struggle to pretend that since September everything, or
indeed anything, has been steadily progressive, or that there’s a sense of
real optimism for next season. There's probably more of a sense that the height of the management team’s ambition in
2019/20 will be to firstly secure safety from relegation and secondly to ensure that
it finishes above Gloucester, such is the tinpot part-time parochial nature of the
current set-up as perceived among more than just a handful of idealistic grumblers. If that’s the case it's going to be a
bit of a problem.
OK,
a season of consolidation (to put it politely) in a properly
competitive division is fair enough, but time's up! It won't be good
enough next season to be run ragged by anyone, anyone at all, not at
this level, and it's not long until August. It'll be quite a
turnaround in four months.
However, if Tim Harris and Marc Richards can find a formula over the summer to make HFC better than most of the teams in this division rather than worse than most of them, which is clearly currently the case, sometimes to an embarrassing degree, well done them, they will have belatedly done an amazing job.
As ever…
COYW