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The visitors are something of a curiosity at this level. They haven’t gone bust and started again like some of the bigger past and present NLN names (mentioning no names), they’ve just been absolutely dreadful for quite a long time.
They’re now huge favourites to bounce back after an alarming slide down the pyramid, and it would be just typical if they choose Hereford’s division as the one in which to get their house in order, arrest that slide, and prove the bookies right. If they can do that, and they’ve started well, you’d imagine anyone finishing above them will be champions, with Tamworth currently making an unlikely stab at being that team.
The Iron pinched James Dean from Peterborough Sports as their manager in the middle of last season, with Dean taking his best player, Dion Sembie-Ferris, with him. Neither could do anything to prevent the club from suffering yet another relegation. DSF (those letters I assume feature on his Range Rover’s number plate somewhere) was, however, sent back to Sports in October on loan for the rest of the season. I idiotically predicted pre-season that he might be the division’s star player in Scunthorpe colours, so that shrewd insight went well.
The Iron brought in at least ten summer signings, and were seeming to be chucking two-year contracts at EFL-experienced players fairly freely, or probably actually very far from freely, with the club’s playing budget being some way north of Hereford’s.
Defender Ross Barrows came in from Altrincham, and has experienced promotion from the NLN before with Kings Lynn. Striker Danny Whitehall is their top scorer with ten goals, and the Scouser is a proven goal-getter in the division above as well as, somewhat obscurely, in the Great Plains Premier League for Bugeaters FC of Omaha, Nebraska. The summer signings joined the likes of striker Danny Elliott, who joined for a fee from Boreham Wood in February, and has scored plenty at this level for Chester, Boston and Alfreton.
They didn’t stop in the summer though. In September they brought youngster Connor Smith in from Hearts on loan with a view to making the move permanent. Whilst with Hearts he went out on loan to an array of some of the more obscure Scottish lower league clubs, and although five goals in 34 games for Queens Park is possibly something to keep quiet rather than to attempt to dine out on, he has scored five in 11 for the Iron since his move, which is none too shabby for a midfielder.
Much of their play goes through experienced midfielder Jacob Butterfield, who has huge EFL experience with Middlesbrough, Derby, Huddersfield and others.
Compared to Hereford, that massive summer overhaul merely looked like fine-tuning, but compared to anyone else it suggested a desire to make a fresh start and attempt to remove what must be a fairly strong smell of failure by now in the home dressing room.
They sit in second place in the table averaging two points a game, but like Hereford their success is built on their home form. Away from home, they’ve won three, drawn three, and lost three. That’s hardly intimidating, and they recently lost comfortably at struggling Kings Lynn. They should perhaps be more fearful of Hereford’s home record, now standing at ten wins from the last 11 games. More encouragement, and you won’t get more concrete statistical evidence than this, is that they tend to win in batches of two, and the last batch of two ended against Warrington on Saturday with a narrow 1-0 home win. I’m not sure how much more the stars have to align for this to look like a home banker when you get down to the nitty-gritty cold, hard facts.
There were some good performances against Scarborough in a win that came from a match in which the Bulls arguably didn’t play the majority of the ‘football’, but took their chances clinically. Ollie Southern, before delivering the long pass that set up the opening goal, dinked through the lines a couple of exquisite little balls on the ground into corridors of uncertainty that, had they been anticipated by the Hereford forward players, would have resulted in them being one-on-one or even clean through. It wasn’t his fault that those players didn’t anticipate them, and I hope he hasn’t been put off and keeps trying them.
Tuesday’s man of the match Tom Pugh will sit out this one as it’s against his parent club, and he’ll be missed, but it would be good if his loan could be extended at least until the return of Jordan Lyden.
This will be harder than the Scarborough game, and may be one of those where the visitors irritatingly have considerably more of the ball, requiring patience from players and fans alike in waiting for a chance to materialise, much like against Rochdale. What this side proved on Tuesday is that it can take chances when they arrive in a variety of ways.
Something like the defensive displays against Brackley and, again, Rochdale, will need to be replicated, and this is a test Paul Downing will no doubt be relishing. The ongoing absence of Nathan Cameron and Kyle Howkins is a concern in that regard, but that arch purveyor of the dinked through ball Ollie Southern has also demonstrated that he can be an obstinate and efficient centre half too.
A win here really would light the season’s blue touch paper, and the players will need the crowd to yet again be the 12th man, as they have been so admirably so far this season.
COYW