.png)
Hereford are currently pulling off the seemingly impossible trick of picking up very few points yet each week edging back up towards the play-offs. Seven points in eight games tells its own story, and is form that should by rights have seen the club winding down for the season and looking to have a better go at it in August.
However, as poor as things have been, and at home in particular recently it’s been a tough old watch, things have been arguably poorer for other clubs, and in what’s becoming the equivalent of a slow bicycle race York, Southport and Boston are all seemingly grinding to a halt, with Darlington and Kettering currently taking advantage. It’s all tightening up, and games in hand elsewhere are being burned through with little gain.
Historically, anything less than 65 points wouldn’t get you a seventh place finish, but this season could be different. However, it’s still likely that the Bulls will have to win at least five of their remaining seven games to give themselves any chance, and the form going into this one of one win in eight suggests that any such finish is ludicrously unlikely.
It’s also debatable whether a fluked promotion, on current form, with finances the way they reportedly are, and with resultant potential embarrassment in the National League proper against equally non-leaguey non-entities as Fylde, with even bigger budgets, is something to aspire to. But that’s the Devil’s advocate speaking. Romantically, of course the play-offs and glorious promotion are what’s wanted. Stark reality can be put off.
At 4:50 last Saturday, no-one emerging from the ground would have been feeling too romantic, and by ‘emerging from the ground’ I mean leaving Edgar Street, not actually coming out of the earth like in a ‘humans as killer moles’ horror movie. Unfortunately the game was a bit of a horror movie though. An anticipated second-half onslaught to look to recover the 2-0 half-time deficit against a bunch of awful chancers didn’t materialise, either because the home side weren’t capable of mounting an onslaught, and to be honest onslaughts have been something of a rarity this season, or Alfreton didn’t allow it. Neither option is easy to stomach.
Saturday’s hosts offer a properly stern test, and have won 11 of their 17 home games this season. There’s little chance of them pinching the title from Brackley or Gateshead, but a win last time out against Farsley suggests that they haven’t yet taken their foot off the gas. Prior to that they lost at Gloucester, which does give some hope.
Nick Haughton has a hugely impressive 23 league goals this season, with two, including a 40-yard free kick, coming at Edgar Street back in August in a 4-1 dismantling of a home side that actually hadn’t really been mantled fully over the summer. That has been the only meeting of these sides to date.
The club recently, bafflingly, sacked Jim Bentley as manager, a properly decent man, replacing him with ex-Gloucester and Chesterfield boss James Rowe, who would be termed ‘no-nonsense’ by someone using euphemism to avoid giving a more accurate character assessment.
For Hereford, Andre Wright up front looked to have something about him last weekend in a way that Mo Touray, regrettably, doesn’t seem to, and Mo Faal offers something a bit different to either of them to give the Fylde defenders something to think about, namely altitude. Wright and Faal in a 4-4-2 would be interesting, but presumably one from the three of them will be a lone starter up front.
Another starter could well be Ryan Lloyd, a player who will be at the top of many supporters’ wish lists as one to keep for 2022/23. His presence for the rest of the season will offer huge reassurance all round, and a few more goals like Saturday’s wouldn’t go amiss.
If you’re making the journey and you like drinking gassy foam, a pint of Carling at Mill Farm costs £2 at midday, gradually rising to £3.75 by 3pm, so if you get to the ground at dawn they’re presumably giving it away for free, or will possibly pay you to drink it, which should of course always be the case with Carling anyway.
Beleaguered or not, the Bulls are still on the premises, and a win here with struggling Telford and Gloucester to follow…you just never know.
Finally, in a week of revisionist hypocrisy from certain quarters following David Keyte’s passing, victory on Saturday would provide a fitting tribute to a man whose enthusiasm for HUFC couldn’t be questioned.
COYW