Season Preview - The Opposition (Part Five)

Here’s the final part of our look at this season’s National League North opposition…

South Shields

The Mariners could be anything this season. Promoted last time in front of decent crowds (they’ve sold over a thousand season tickets for this season), momentum seemed to be with them under the stewardship of Kevin Phillips. That momentum was assisted by the ‘influence’ (OK cash) of sugar daddy Geoff Thompson, but when he decided, quite sensibly, that the club should be more self-sustaining, Phillips left after reportedly finding out that the NLN playing budget might be more Hereford than Brackley, and Julio Arca took over. So, lots of uncertainty, meaning that they could be bang in the hunt for back-to-back promotions or sink like a stone in a sea of bitterness and acrimony. Or finish respectably somewhere in mid-table. One of those options anyway, that’s a confident prediction.

New striker Paul Blackett, signed from Spennymoor, knows where the goal is at this level, but also knows where the treatment table is. Fellow forward Luke James joins the club with bags of Football League experience under his 25-year-old belt.

Blackett isn’t the only player South Shields have poached from Spennymoor, and it looks like the Mariners are very much the big brother financially at this level in the northeast. This is probably because, somewhat crazily for a club coming up from the seventh tier of English football, they’re full-time. Of course they are. What did I say about self-sustainability above? It must mean something different in football-land.

Anyway, the upshot of this purchasing power should be that they’re more back-to-back promotion candidates than sink-like-a-stoners, and if they start badly they can just pinch the better players from Blyth, Darlo and Spennymoor by the looks of it. I suppose that means their budget is probably more Brackley than Hereford after all.

Spennymoor Town

Glen Taylor yet again finished as one of the top scorers in the NLN last season, and is contracted to the club this term too. At 32, age doesn’t seem to be a barrier to him at this level – let’s hope new Bulls goalie Curtis Pond is.

Jamie Chandler is the new manager at Spennymoor, and has brought in ex-Bull Ben Pollock from Boston and Sam Fielding from Bradford Park Avenue.

41-year-old defender James Curtis has signed a new deal, presumably not a particularly long-term one, with the club. It will be the centre back's eighth consecutive season at Moors, and he made 40 appearances last season as captain, clearly showing no signs of slowing down. All very admirable of course, but if truth be told he also often shows no signs of respecting refereeing decisions either.

Midfielder Danny Greenfield said the club only has one aim for the coming season and he thinks "everyone knows what that is".

That’s quite clever because it implies a desire to get promoted, but actually it could mean wearing clown costumes during matches in November, so it sounds like a statement of intent but could be nothing of the sort.

Having to compete with South Shields financially seems to be beyond them (see above), which could prove troublesome in terms of being competitive at the top of the table, and is interesting given that Moors haven’t been short of a few bob themselves historically.

 

Tamworth

What? Tamworth? Really? When did that happen? OK, I’ve just checked, and yes it seems to be true, Tamworth are in the NLN this season. They came up as Southern League Premier Central winners.

Another plastic pitch to contend with, which was something of an achilles heel for the Bulls last season, although to be honest the side had more achilles heels than players.

Ex-Bull Jordan Cullinane-Liburd has rejoined Tamworth, and that looks like a smashing signing, with the defender making the play-offs last season with finalists Brackley, having cemented a place in their first team since leaving Edgar Street. He could possibly be partnering fellow ex-Hereford central defender Jamie Willets. As important a role as Willets played in shoring up Peter Beadle’s leaky Midland League defence, I would not in a million years have envisaged him turning up at NLN level given his footballing limitations, but the Kidderminster-born schoolteacher always seemed like a nice chap so well done him for making the most of his ability.

This level, a surreal world in which South Shields are a full-time football club, looks tough for the Lambs but no, I’m not going anywhere near any kind of ‘…to the slaughter’ vibe here in what strives to be a cliché-free zone.

Warrington Town

Near neighbours of Leigh RMI, now Leigh Genesis, the teeny club whose unlikely 1-0 win at Edgar Street during THAT season cost a very good Hereford United side automatic promotion. Good goal though as I recall. This barely masks the fact that I can’t think of much to say about Warrington, other than that I should imagine Warrington as a place has very little in common with near-namesake Tarrington, even the ‘ar’ bit

It does give the season an A49 derby I suppose if you stretch the definition of a derby to the extent that it becomes utterly meaningless.

Ah, their manager is Mark Beesley, which gives a nice circularity to this little section because he of course was signed by Graham Turner during THAT season, presumably because he (Sir Graham) felt the team was short of goals in only scoring seven every week.

Oh, and new signing Peter Clarke is more or less in his mid-40s, which stands out as being an age not far off mine, and no-one else in the division is signing people that old, not even Gloucester.

So there we have it. Scunthorpe, Chester and Kings Lynn are hard to see past as automatic promotion contenders, although the latter two have lost their main goal threats from last season. Boston surely can’t go as badly this time as they did last, and there are a smattering of small and/or newly promoted clubs who you’d imagine would struggle, but that didn’t seem to be the case last season, with Buxton, Banbury, Peterborough and Scarborough adapting seamlessly. Of this season’s new clubs, South Shields look to be the most obvious dark horses, albeit about as dark as Desert Orchid as the bookies have them as third favourites to complete back-to-back promotions.

Does the new-look Hereford squad have what it takes to compete, get a foothold in the play-offs and stay there? In a bid to find out, I make a load of sweeping generalisations and hope to get away with whole paragraphs of factually baseless guesswork and conjecture in my seasonal preview of the Bulls’ chances, coming to this space very soon, possibly even tomorrow.

COYW