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Any magic or indeed romance floating around Edgar Street this time though is entirely reserved for the visitors, Anstey Nomads, and the pitch will be neither mudbath or ice rink as September, with its heatwave, seems to be developing the wacky meteorological tendencies of every other month in suggesting that the planet’s had quite enough of humans. Ben Bowen’s super non-mudbath surface should allow the visitors to play as much passing football as they want, but it would be handy if they could ultimately not do a Newport IOW.
For the hosts, this offers some respite from what has been a hugely frustrating start to the season. 3000+ crowds and massive swathes of positivity are not to be sniffed at when you’re stuck in the cobwebby corners of the football pyramid, but the nasty injuries to the intended first-choice strikeforce have at least for now put a dent in that wonderful positivity exhibited by the Hereford FC fanbase when the season started in August. Does a pyramid have corners? It has tricky-to-get-to bits but I don’t know if they’d be described as corners specifically.
Repeated losses in the league have been so frustrating because the squad looks perfectly capable of being bang in the mix with the addition of two strikers. That was said repeatedly last season, but the difference this time is that precisely those two strikers are already signed, but just not fit. It’s horrible bad luck really.
When you think of how incisive players like Alex Babos, Jordan Cranson and Aaron Skinner will be able to burst through when defenders are entirely pre-occupied with keeping Willo and Cowley quiet there’s plenty to look forward to, and that’s assuming NLN defenders will be able to keep Willo and Cowley quiet, which they won’t.
It’s most frustrating of course for the person who lives and breathes it most, Paul Caddis, a new manager denied the opportunity to properly test the squad he built against everything the National League North can throw at him.
In the meantime, this one needs to just be got through with the minimum of fuss and complacency, mainly the latter, because without that front two, and with a knackered assistant coach presumably desperate for a rest, there’s nothing much left up top, so if the visitors nick a lead early with Cup fever coursing through them like Stowford Press on an empty stomach, coming back to win would be a tall order, and a replay is a fairly depressing prospect.
Having said that, you’d hope that Tom Hewlett, if he gets the opportunity, should be able to have some sort of impact against a side five tiers below his parent club, Burton.
With the question everyone’s asking being “Where are the goals coming from over the next six weeks or so?” the answer doesn’t obviously look to be new arrival Yusifu Ceesay, but he does have a decent pedigree in terms of creating chances at National League North level, so if nothing else he could lift the club into the top three of teams across National Leagues North and South in terms of getting into 1v1 attacking situations, even if those situations don’t result in goals. The Bulls are currently fourth in that particular league table according to Paul Caddis, which, depending on your point of view, is either utterly meaningless because goals rather than 1v1 situations win football matches, or quite encouraging in suggesting that there’s plenty of threat in the squad and the end product will be coming back to fitness soon to put the icing on the threat, as no-one has ever said.
Saturday’s Leicester-based guests ply their trade in the Northern Premier League Midlands Division, two steps below Hereford, following promotion last season. On Saturday they dumped Corby Town out of the FA Trophy. They’re unbeaten in their four league games to date, and have played the same number of games in the FA Cup, including a replay which they won on penalties. Their reward is this trip to Edgar Street.
Last season, they got all the way to the very cusp of being patronised live on the BBC when falling just short of Auntie’s first round proper coverage, losing to Chesterfield in the fourth qualifying round. They’ve therefore got a bit of pedigree recently as Cup capables, and I don’t suppose they’ve had their forward line taken away from them by injury this season either.
So, despite a banana-skin aspect to this given the home team’s recent record and the visitors’ proven ability in this competition, this is potentially a good opportunity to get a bit of confidence back with a comfortable win. However, arguably the main plus point is that it uses up another week in getting ever closer to the belated commencement of the Willo and Cowley double-act without having to go through the trauma of actually playing a league game. That double-act will have some catching up to do when it finally does get started.
COYW