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It’s the longest away trip of the season for Hereford FC this Saturday as they trek up to Croft Park, Blyth, for a very winnable-looking National League North fixture. The coach will be having snow chains fitted as I type (by which I mean the team bus rather than Josh Gowling), and the players will be having fur lining inserted into their shirts. Fake fur, of course.
The long journey is obviously a right faff and won’t make the assignment easy, but this looks like a good opportunity for the Bulls to get their season back on track.
Their record against Saturday’s hosts gives great cause for optimism - five wins from five meetings, including a 2-0 win at Edgar Street during that golden month of November when Ryan McLean was making NLN defenders’ lives thoroughly miserable. Goals from him and Dan Smith, Smith’s a blistering finish, secured the points that evening.
For Spartans, midfielder JJ O’Donnell has done very well to grab 11 league goals this season in a struggling team. However, their recent form is, basically, the worst in the league. They’ve lost five in a row at home, leaving them just three points clear of bottom-of-the-table Guiseley, having played two games more. They’re now fighting for their lives, and as such could be a tricky proposition, but presumably they’ve felt that they’ve been fighting for their lives for a few weeks, in which time they’ve mostly been losing, so perhaps they’re just not very good at fighting for their lives, and as such aren’t a tricky proposition after all.
The last of those home defeats was a 3-1 loss to Bradford PA, but before that they did manage to beat Chorley away 1-0. However, it’s that abject home form that the Bulls will want to focus, and capitalise, on.
Certainly Hereford couldn’t wish for a better opportunity to finally pick up that elusive win and keep themselves handily placed on the edge of the play-offs. With four points from their last six games, it’s quite remarkable that they’re still right there, but with most teams in the middle of the table regularly losing, those recent Bulls draws haven’t been as damaging as they should have been. One of the clubs in that cluster will surely put a winning run together soon, and despite the various injuries and untimely departures that have contributed to this recent poor run, that club could well be Hereford FC. There’s also now a huge added incentive, that of York City. To finish above them would now, in light of their recent signing, be very sweet indeed, and they’re a tantalising target in seventh place.
It does feel like there have been a number of setbacks recently which must have dented the morale of the management team and their charges, not least Miles Storey’s injury on Tuesday, which will presumably keep him out for a few weeks. If the squad can use any sense of injustice or adversity that may exist in the dressing room as a galvanising force for good, all the better.
On a positive note, Ryan Lloyd, James Vincent and Jared Hodgkiss could be back in contention for this one, and would give the side some solidity and worldlywiseness (yes that’s a word if bouncebackability is). New striker Andre Wright looks on face value to be a little bit of a curious arrival, given that he’s coming from a Telford team that’s struggled all season, and hasn’t been notably prolific in his career to date. However, Josh Gowling may have seen something in him that will work alongside a Mo or two, and Jaanai Gordon’s record was similarly unconvincing and journeymanish before he came to Edgar Street, and he was turned into a decent player by the Gowling-Burr partnership, not that he showed much gratitude. Wright is a similar age to Gordon, and if Josh and Steve can get the form he showed at Bohemians in Ireland out of him (a goal in every two games), the Bulls could have a chance of hitting that two-points-a-game target they need to get into the play-offs. The only trouble Is, if he turns out to be a goal machine he’ll be off to York or Brackley or some other bigger club than Hereford like Leicester flipping Nirvana faster than you can say worldlywiseness. Or bouncebackability.
Following some uncertainty surrounding Dinesh Gillela’s absence on Tuesday evening, the 3-5-2/5-3-2 experiment could be persisted with here, particularly if Captain H isn’t quite ready to take back control of the ship’s wheel yet, but if he is back a lesser-spotted 4-4-2 could be on the cards with a Faal-Wright partnership up front looking possible, and hopefully profitable.
This one’s nailed on – three points finally to make the long journey back a little more tolerable and to give the home match next Saturday against a very, very average Alfreton side with absolutely nothing to play for a good deal more meaning. Back-to-back wins would really put the bull among the pigeons.
COYW