It's back! The new football season arrives to coincide with the start of an Ashes series. Bit weird, but so is having Boris Johnson in charge of running a still vaguely coherent country rather than just trying to keep his trousers on.
Such a lot has changed over the summer, and the post-Beadle Hereford FC 2.0
project returns with a new chairman and much-renovated squad of players, and a
2020 vision of promotion on everyone’s radar.
Hereford face Spennymoor Town on
Saturday at Edgar Street, kick-off 3pm, as they embark on their 2019/2020
National League North campaign.
So to mirror what's happening in Westminster, it's all change at Edgar Street, with a Jagger
but no Richards in midfield (at least for the time being), and head coach Marc
Richards seemingly favouring a 3-5-2 formation as the best way to get maximum
return from his new squad. The formation never really seemed to work last
season, with the back three too prone to being breached by quick-breaking
hordes of northerners, but with the new midfield players offering the potential
to be able to defend better higher up the pitch, the
Riley-Gowling-Cullinane-Liburd triumvirate is arguably less likely to be
exposed as frequently. On paper they even look like they’re a four not a three
- tactically very clever indeed. With Jordan C-L finding the net in the
pre-season friendlies, he and Josh Gowling look to represent something of a goal
threat from set pieces at the other end too.
Up front, fans will be hoping
that Rowan Liburd quickly dispels concerns felt in some quarters that a
weakness may be his chances-to-goals conversion rate, while newcomer Reece
Styche, seemingly boasting the affability of a hungover steamroller bearing a
grudge, could be exactly the sort of player needed to give some of those
defences encountered last season the feeling at 90 minutes that they’ve at
least been in a game.
Too many times last year back
fours, facing between them the sole threat of a tired Mike Symons, could quite
understandably have skipped gaily, arm in arm, off the pitch at the end of the
match having been troubled not a jot. The fact that this didn’t happen is of
course only because quartets of 6’ 4” Godzillas from Lancashire don’t tend to
skip gaily, arm in arm, anywhere, but crucially there’s now some physical
presence in the Bulls attack, and that’s such a plus. The addition of Bradley
Ash offers something other than muscular brutality, and he’s a player who at 19
went to Barnsley from Weston having scored a goal a game in his debut National
League South season. Still only 23, he looks to have the potential to score a
good few goals and use his time at Hereford as the springboard to another crack
at League football. A Millsesque 50 goals in each of the next couple of seasons
could mean that he gets that opportunity at Edgar Street.
Familiar faces such as Tommy
O’Sullivan and Tom Owen-Evans now look to have more steel alongside them in
midfield in terms of the new players brought in, notably the aforementioned
Jacob Jagger Cane, to allow them more freedom to unlock defences, and generally
to fulfil the potential they’ve shown to date. The 3-5-2 could perhaps allow
TOE to sit behind the front two, creating chances for both them and himself and
allowing him to build on his impressive goal tally of last year in a struggling
team. Having said that, the new feverish competition for places, particularly
in midfield, means that those two will be vying for a start with Jordan
Nicholson and Jason Pope, both of whom look like very promising new recruits.
At right back/right wing back, Jared Hodgkiss
looks to be an excellent acquisition, a leader both by example and by shouting
a lot, someone who has played at a decent level, and like JJC a player not
likely to be out-muscled or intimidated by physically powerful sides, ie most
of the division.
The management team look to
have done a good job in using the money they’ve been given wisely by bringing
‘the right sort of player’ in. If those players can quickly gel, the slowing of
momentum of the phoenix club that was generally felt by supporters last season
can be reversed. It’s a massively front-loaded fixture list this season, giving
slow-starting clubs a mountain to climb post-September if they’re to claw back
lost ground, so this new squad have to develop an understanding quickly.
Something that was noticeable last season was how tight-knit some teams were,
having played together for several seasons. Games were lost to that sort of
team.
Spennymoor have been hung out
to dry a bit by the fixture computer, with a long old trip down from Durham to
get their season started. Bulls fans will be hoping that, as with Blyth in last
season’s opener, the Moors arrive off the coach at Edgar Street a bit
dazed and confused, wondering just how far south they’ve come, and there for
the taking with a bit of early zippiness from the hosts and a boisterous Meadow End.
However, if they’re on their
game they’ll be a right troublesome handful, and this looks like a true test
for the new-look Bulls, an early indication of how competitive Hereford can be
this season. The visitors finished fourth last season, ultimately narrowly losing
out to tough-as-old-boots Chorley in the play-off final, having been in the
play-off positions for the majority of it.
Honours were even last term with
an away win each, the Edgar Street match demonstrating conclusively that this
league really is hard, and the return fixture resulting in one of the better
outcomes in a frustrating season for Hereford. Spennymoor were physically big
and strong from back to front, but impressively capable with the ball on the
floor too.
Ex-Bull James Roberts lines up
for the visitors, and although he struggled to make a meaningful impact at
Edgar Street despite an impeccable attitude, he’s been finding the net in
pre-season and will presumably be keen to show his ex-employers they were wrong
to offload him (even though they weren’t).
So, a nice juicy opener, and
with Stockport and Chorley gone the division is there for the taking. This
squad looks considerably more suited to the battles to come than the one that
drew too often with poor teams last season (and took some baffling positives
from doing so), and a win would set things up perfectly for the big one in
midweek, the match quite literally no-one is describing as the Three Counties
Derby, Gloucester v Hereford in Worcester(shire).
COYW