To the seaside, although this is gritty northern English seaside rather than your louche, lazy European seaside, so expect good, honest, hardworking horizontal rain rather than godawful continental self-indulgent sunshine. (Ahem, sorry, I don't know where that came from; as far as I know this website doesn't have a position on Brexit, just like the UK government).
Hereford FC travel to Southport tomorrow for what should be an absolute cracker of a meaningless mid-table end-of-season rollercoaster ride, the like of which we haven't seen since that unforgettable away trip to Alfreton way back in...oooh, Tuesday. All sorts of things are at stake, not least the right to finish 15th. It couldn't have been scripted better.
Southport are a bit of a mystery really, in terms of how wrong they've gone. When they came to Edgar Street in November the home side were flattered in getting totally and utterly done 3-0. The Sandgrounders were very big, very strong and very powerful, but also technically accomplished. I glanced around that evening at fellow supporters and their eyes would have been screaming 'We're down!' if eyes could scream. It was so bad that someone probably did actually scream 'We're down!' from their actual mouth rather than their eyes, such was their level of despair, or inability to emote optically.
Admittedly that was relatively early in the new management team's reign, and it was readily apparent that night that Richards, Harris etc were a bit shocked at what they'd been recruited to take on, and at the time were themselves recruiting and sacking in a pretty unconvincing fashion in a bid to shore things up and prove that rabbits and headlights weren't going to be used as metaphors in relation to them.
However, after that autumn mismatch, somehow the Bulls now sit a place above Southport, and if this one's closely fought it will demonstrate that the experience since gained by the management team has borne fruit. Arguments will abound as to whether it might have been better to bring that sort of experience in immediately when Pete Beadle was sacked rather than giving a seemingly very part-time and unproven set-up the luxury of gaining it on the job while the punters suffered over a long winter and attendances haemorraged, but there we are. That set-up has since proved to be capable of turning out a team that's difficult to beat, although at times hard to watch. The challenge over the summer will be to eradicate that second aspect, and also to eradicate a suspicion among supporters that the people in charge think 'winning ugly' is some sort of badge of honour - it really isn't, not at this level if you're at the helm of a relatively big club and you want people to turn up and be engaged.
That Southport side that looked like play-off certainties in the autumn are now down next to Hereford in the table because they've been pretty rubbish recently, with two points from their last five games, whereas the Bulls have banished any relegation fears with eight points from their last five.
Thoughts go out to Keiran Thomas, who was involved in a car accident which prevented him joining the squad for the Alfreton game. Hopefully he'll be fit to travel for this one, but it sounded unlikely when the club last gave an update, admittedly some time ago. Get well soon Keiran. Elsewhere, it will again presumably be the two big lads up front and a reliance on their height in terms of build-up play (using that term euphemistically to describe long hopeful punts) and, ooooh I don't know, we'll generally be hard to beat maybe.
From what everyone's seen this season, to be a play-off challenger in this division you have to be really very good, good enough to be mid-table in the division above, such are the geographical nonsenses of the current set up. It's clear that the squad and coaching mindset are some way short of that currently, so it'll be an interesting summer given that supporters, as they consider whether or not to buy season tickets, will be expecting a squad to be built that's capable of being more than just hard to beat. And wouldn't it be great if one or two of the victorious under-18 squad were brought through for a blooding at some point.
In terms of tomorrow, we probably won't win but we probably won't lose, because that's how we set up, and that only leaves one option, so get down to the bookies. £5 on 5-5 could pay for a fortnight in a caravan in Southport this summer, which is presumably where Jacob Rees-Mogg and his family go for their holidays, given his weirdly fervent love of all things British. Nah, it's Tuscany isn't it?
Finally, I'm conscious that I haven't done this for a while because I was too busy grumbling about HFC's shortcomings, but I know one or two of you out there like a bit of info on our opponents, so just for you the Southport club secretary is called James Tedford, or Ted Jamesford, or something, and I bet he's really smashing. OK, OK, I was struggling this week to find 1500 words about meaningless matches against Alfreton and Southport - give me a break.
COYW