.png)
A big gate is expected, or at least what counts as a big gate these days, as is an atmosphere to match that of the Rochdale game in the last round.
The hosts go into this one slightly short of bodies but not at all short of momentum. Smelly old Alfreton are but a distant memory following a brilliant win and performance at Chorley last Saturday, hinting at real strength in depth in a squad that’s currently missing some key players to injury.
There’s some uncertainty over whether Aurio Teixira will be banned for this one or the Brackley game next Tuesday. If he can play, he’ll be able to run his legs down to stumps knowing that he’ll be kicking his heels for the rest of the week, not that he’d have heels if he’s down to stumps. Paul Caddis definitely is banned, and may end up having to give orders from the Merton Meadow car park during the game given that there are no seats in the ground left.
Alex Babos seems to get a mention here every week at the moment which can only mean that he’s playing well. He’s currently scoring a goal a game, a rate which contrasts strikingly with that of most of the attacking players Hereford FC have used over the last few years, who tended more towards a goal a season. That strike rate is coupled with the ability to prompt others into dangerous positions with probing runs and balls and general things that make defenders uncomfortable, which can be summed up as pacy forward momentum rather than lateral nothingness, a tactical progression Paul Caddis promised pre-season and has delivered on.
The big team news last week was of course Jason Cowley’s return to action. His ten-minute cameo will give supporters hope that Caddis’s bad luck with injuries so far this season is beginning to turn. However, anxiety will accompany that hope until he has safely negotiated two or three games unscathed. If he’s fit enough to start here, which admittedly seems unlikely, his pent up frustration will either result in a ten-minute hat-trick or a spontaneous combustion, either of which would look spectacular via the BBC cameras, or camera, as they’re only bringing one apparently. The footage from that one camera will earn the club £5k, which seems a bit tight given that Gary Lineker ‘earns’ that in half the time it takes him to do one of his oh-so-droll withering matey put-downs of the pundits in the Match of the Day studio.
Saturday’s visitors make the trip up from Kent in a little bit of disarray. They sacked their manager Neil Harris at the start of October because he’d only managed to get them to the promotion places in League 2, and the board wanted to go ‘in a different direction’, presumably judging promotion to be the wrong direction. That change of direction has been achieved in spades, because they’re now not only out of the promotion places but south of the play-off places too, having lost four in six, so well done the Gills board there. Last Saturday they lost 2-0 at home to a Newport side that had been spending much of the season up to that point offering broad hints that it wasn’t much good.
Stephen Clemence was unveiled this week as the Gills’ new manager and this, intriguingly, will be his first ever football match as a manager.
This is their second season in League 2 after getting relegated on goal difference in 2022. If they continue to be led in such a cack-handed fashion that ‘different direction’ could yet have a National League flavour to it.
You don’t have to be a master tactician to identify Gillingham’s achilles heel. They’ve scored just 14 goals in 16 league games so far, and to put that into context bottom club Sutton have managed 22.
Club captain Shaun Williams could make a return to the Gills starting XI here as he recovers from a problem with one of his 37-year-old knees, and striker Ronald Sithole very nearly has an amusing name, and according to the Gillingham website was born in 1901, making him 122 years old. Somewhat cruelly the club have nevertheless forced him to play in cup competitions this season (although have mercifully rested him for League matches at least). With this being a cup match, he could make an appearance, and if so will be the oldest player ever to grace the sacred Edgar Street turf, by some margin.
As for the hosts, Kyle Howkins should return here to partner Nathan Cameron in central defence, with Paul Downing still presumably out with an iffy hamstring, although Ollie Southern’s deputising performance last weekend was accomplished enough to give him a chance of retaining his place.
Up front, Ethan Freemantle, who slightly unexpectedly started at Chorley after struggling with his fitness at Alfreton, could be given the opportunity to add to his winning goal in the last round if fit. That said, a rested Adam Rooney would add some useful wise-owlness, and will presumably be used at some point, and Cowley will get quite a reception if he plays any part.
As Alex Babos has said, the players feel no fear ahead of this one and neither should they – it’s at the home of the FA Cup upset, it’s something of a free hit, a noisy Meadow End is always good for sucking a goal in for the home side, the opposition seem to be at sixes and sevens as a club, and stronger sides than Gillingham have succumbed to a humbling in the past.
With neither of these sides prolific scorers, this one’s unlikely to finish 5-4 (darn it, I was determined not to mention that!), but another 1-0 home win would do just fine.
COYW