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Hereford FC make the long trip up to the northeast this weekend to face Spennymoor Town as the National League North season approaches its end.
The Brewery Field playing surface is usually a good one, and it’s made of grass with actual mud underneath, so the Bulls should be able to get the ball down and play in the way they have in patches away from home this season. The fact that they haven’t managed to do that at home very much has been the cause of them remaining outside the play-offs as the summer break approaches, tantalisingly close but with an unpleasant looking three games left.
Chorley won last Saturday to give themselves breathing space after an awful run that saw them threatened with getting sucked into the mid-table blob of clubs beneath them who can’t put any sort of run together to secure one of the last two remaining play-off places. With them now safe as play-off participants, that blobby chasing group now therefore ‘only’ consists of nine clubs.
Having said no-one can put a run together, Alfreton, a club who make Kettering look quite accomplished and sophisticated, have actually now somehow won six in seven to shoot up to eighth place, just a point behind Boston who occupy the final play-off position. Alfreton and York both won in midweek, making Hereford’s end-of-season task all the harder.
Alfreton’s ascent tells you all you need to know about the quality of that stuttering pack. I don’t think I’d be speaking out of turn to suggest that any club finishing below them is nowhere near ready for play-off participation, let alone promotion.
If Hereford win their remaining three games, with the final two being against top and second in the table, they’ll finish on 63 points which would, historically speaking, be a low points tally to secure seventh place. All in all, it’s looking like a very tall order, and in truth form has been patchy, to put it politely, since mid-February.
Saturday’s hosts are one of the many mid-table stuttering blobsters, and sit a place above the Bulls courtesy of a goal difference just one goal better than Hereford’s.
Last Saturday they drew 1-1 with Southport which, not too long ago, would have been a very good result. However, one silver lining to what looks like ultimately being a just-missing-out season for the Bulls is that unlovely Southport continue to sink like a stone, so a draw there is now as devalued as Rishi Sunak’s reputation.
As ever, the stand-out dangerman for the Moors is ace marksman Glen Taylor, who, unusually, doesn’t currently top the divisional goalscoring chart, but nevertheless has 24 league goals to his name. Another threat comes from winger Rob Ramshaw, who scored Moors’ goal last weekend.
Since ascending to the National League North in 2017, Spennymoor haven’t finished outside the top eight in seasons actually completed, and competed in the play-offs in 2018/19. 2021/22 has, for them, been something of a disappointment as they continue to hold aspirations of becoming a Football League club, just like everyone else I suppose. December saw the club sack Tommy Miller as manager and appoint Anthony Johnson and Bernard Morley in an attempt to rectify a slow start, but that less-than-adorable duo haven’t had the impact ambitious chairman Brad Groves would have hoped for.
For Hereford, Ryan McLean will be unavailable for this one following his sending off last Saturday, and for a player who makes the average jockey look like a prop forward a sending off for supposedly excessive physicality was some achievement. Miles Storey looks like he will be back in the squad after injury, although ‘impact sub’ may be the extent of his role here.
Last weekend’s man of the match Seb Revan should again cause problems on the opposition’s right flank, and a first goal in a Bulls shirt would be a richly deserved reward for the talented young Villain. That sounds rude doesn’t it but you know what I mean, or at least you will if you understand capital letters.
With Revan’s attacking instincts, and admirable Jared Hodgkiss seemingly increasingly keen to get forward for the cause, there may be a case for trying a 3-5-2, with Krystian Pearce coming in alongside Pollock and Egan, Luke Haines holding, and everyone else given licence to try to score a hat-trick each. There really is nothing to lose.
These sides were kept apart by Covid last season, but in September Moors eased to victory at Edgar Street courtesy of a brace from Glen Taylor, against a Hereford side who hadn’t really started their season at that point.
The league table suggests that Hereford’s task in claiming seventh place on the final day of the season by winning all their remaining matches is a possibility, but no-one has a tougher run-in, and as such there’s little chance really of the season extending beyond 42 games. However, that makes this one something of a free hit, so you never know.
COYW