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The visitors are Bradford Park Avenue, a club who have been keeping Telford company at the foot of the table all season, until recently sparking into life to pick up eight points from their last four games to give them a squeak at survival. Anything other than a win here though and they’re virtually down. It could therefore be an entertaining game given that they’ll be looking for goals, and the hosts will be keen to finish at home on a high after a gloomy 2022/23.
With nothing left to play for themselves other than the chance of beating Peterborough Sports to 14th place (yes, it’s been that sort of a season), the Bulls will nevertheless have a significant say in who drops out of the division, with this match and then an away trip to Blyth, who are currently only safe on goal difference, on the final day next Saturday.
Last season’s Edgar Street meeting between these two was a lively one, with five goals scored, both managers booked (along with ten players), and Ryan McLean sent off. Hereford took the points, but nearly didn’t win a game they looked to have already won at half-time. Another victory would be gratefully received, but preferably achieved in a more straightforward fashion.
Apart from that, the Bulls have really not done well against Saturday’s opponents, especially considering that Avenue have struggled in recent seasons, finishing bottom, 15th and 18th in the last three. In the eight NLN games between the clubs to date, Bradford have won five and Hereford have only won that slightly crazy match last April. Earlier this season on the plastic in West Yorkshire the home side won 1-0 in what was a match very much to forget.
To counter the troublesome nature of those head-to-heads with some optimism, Bradford have only won two of their 22 away matches this season and have conceded 40 goals in those matches. There is ample scope therefore for ace marksman and all-round fox in the box Orrin Pendley to add to his goal tally here. A hat-trick in each of the final two games should be enough to see him top the Hereford goalscoring list for the season. In all seriousness that instinct for a goal along with his dogged defending, the potential capacity to be thrown up front as an emergency striker when required, and the fact that he’s presumably one of the more affordable squad members, could make OPenGoal! worthy of a place on the retained list for next season. He could spend some of his wages on having that as his car number plate too.
Ex-Norwich striker Oli Johnson has been with Avenue for six years, but now in his mid-30s his goalscoring threat has diminished. He has just two goals this season. Fellow striker Jacob Blyth joined from Chorley in the summer, but left for Darlington on loan last month for the rest of the season. Lloyd Smith is his replacement, back at the club having been on loan at Frickley. He has failed to score since his return. Amid all this misfiring and departing from the club’s strikers, it’s the goals of Will Longbottom that have contributed most significantly to Bradford’s recent upturn in form.
‘Club legend’ Adam Nowakowski thankfully left the club in December, as he’s often been an influential presence for Avenue in the middle of the park. His place has been taken by academy graduate Myles La Bastide, ensuring that one thoroughly typical Yorkshire name replaces another. Throw Harrison Hopper and George Sykes-Kenworthy into the mix and the visitors have some really super names to conjure with.
Meanwhile an interesting and almighty play-off scramble is developing, with just five points separating 4th from 13th, and within that just three points separating 5th from 12th. As has been said before, there are a large clutch of clubs in the middle of the division who are more or less indistinguishable from each other in terms of their quality. It’s a shame that this season that clutch, as big as it is, doesn’t include Hereford. The play-offs could yet feature Scarborough, Alfreton, Curzon Ashton and Buxton, and the late great Mystic Meg would have struggled to see that coming last August, with those clubs strongly fancied to struggle.
Back-to-back wins would of course be great (and really weird) but also a bit frustrating in hinting that the Bulls are on the charge just in time for the cricket season. Any end-of-term complacency however should, given the importance of the game to the visitors, result in yet another sad trudge home for Bulls supporters, and everyone’s had quite enough of those for one season.
Reliable sources have suggested to me that a representation of the new manager’s face and his name have been mown into the Edgar Street pitch by Ben Bowen for this match, so if you want to admire that you’ll have to turn up.
Welcome to the club Mr Caddis.
COYW