Hereford FC return to Yorkshire
this Saturday following their midweek heroics against York, with Farsley Celtic
the hosts this time. With that county clearly now established as a happy hunting ground,
everyone will be keen to see whether that wonderful win was a freakish one-off
or whether finally the jigsaw pieces are falling into place.
If that jigsaw
then looks complete by the end of the season, the question of course will be
whether it gets given away to the charity shop, or whether it goes off for a
summer holiday and is taken out of its box and played with again in August. If the latter, would it be Josh Gowling who’s allowed to play with it again, or
would it be given to some other person who wouldn’t be as familiar with the
pieces as JG (whose initials even bring to mind the word ‘jigsaw’ – surely no
coincidence?). If it was given to someone else, would they then try to bring
jigsaw pieces in from other boxes, perhaps pieces whose knees have gone, and
press down on them really hard in a futile attempt to try to get them to fit?
Those are the sort of questions on everyone’s lips in and around the club, I
have no doubt about that.
Farsley are top of the
also-rans’ table, seven points behind eighth-placed Gateshead, with that top
eight pulling away from the rest. After promotion last season, they’ve
acquitted themselves very well to the rigours of the National League North. They’ve
won two of their last five games, beating Blyth at home (meaningless) and
Brackley away (impressive).
A series of postponements have meant they’ve only
played four games in the last five weeks, so they should be as fresh as
daisies. A sickening 93rd minute equaliser earned them a point at
Edgar Street in November. They’ve lost a third of their matches at their
obviously-not-entirely-impregnable Citadel stadium this season, which gives some cause
for optimism.
With Hereford currently in the
middle of a glut of away matches, Gowling will have to consider whether to
shuffle his pack of jigsaw pieces (ah, that doesn’t quite work) to keep legs
fresh with Kettering looming large on the midweek horizon, or to stick with
Tuesday’s heroes. Jordan Cullinane Liburd comes back into contention following
suspension, and it might be tempting to bring him in to give Martin Riley’s
shoulder a rest.
A 3-2 loss to Lads Club and a
4-1 win over York in the last two away matches starkly demonstrate the futility
of a score prediction. What seems fairly certain is that there will be goals.
Notwithstanding Martin Riley’s admirable bravery in getting through matches
with that aforementioned semi-detached shoulder, the Bulls’ defending is still unreliable
and prone to moments of self-destruction in a range of unlikely ways, but
suddenly at the other end the front six are attacking at pace, with skill and
threat, with the full backs joining in too. OK, it was just one match, but whodathoughtit?
We saw a decent performance against York earlier in the season, before
everything went pear-shaped again against the more run-of-the-mill sides. You
don’t get more run of the mill than Farsley Celtic, so fingers crossed that the
Bulls will be able to keep that level of motivation in more modest surroundings
and come out charging again at 3pm. I'd forgotten what optimism felt like. Much nicer than dread.
COYW