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It’s the longest trip of the season for Hereford FC on Saturday as they travel up to full-time South Shields, a 550ish-mile round trip. The only remotely southerly thing about South Shields is that it’s not North Shields. Having said that, the forecast is OK – a balmy four degrees, which you’d take in early January. In fact, that’s warmer than the forecast for Hereford, so if you’re looking for a new year getaway to winter warmth, what better option than a long weekend on Tyneside, taking in the game? The Mariners should provide a properly stern test for Paul Caddis and his squad, before a hectic festive glut of fixtures starts to settle back into something a little more sane.
Paul Blackett ended up as the division’s top scorer with 30 goals last season. He’s got 14 already in 2024/25 and is therefore on course for another 30-goal season. Some achievement. He’s been on the cusp of a five-yellows one-match suspension for a few weeks, but doesn’t look to have done anything too dastardly over Christmas, at least on the football pitch, and should therefore start here. Partly due to that centre forward’s contribution, they’ve scored more goals than anyone else in the division at home, with a big chunk of those goals coming in a recent 7-0 demolition of Rushall, who played much of the game with ten men after ex-Bull Nathan Cameron was sent off. Blackett got three of them.
They tend to profit from repeatedly bringing Gateshead players in on loan. The latest in a string of Heed loanees is right winger Tom Allan. He’s scored three times since arriving last month, which is loosely comparable with what Hereford have collectively scored in a similar timeframe.
Five of their seven midfielders have beards. That may or may not have a relevance in terms of the outcome of this game. Actually, it probably won’t will it, it’s just fashion. If it was the 1980s, five of them would have really, really appalling haircuts.
The tactics last season home and away against the Mariners involved sitting back and allowing them as much possession as they wanted in front of banks of defensively-minded but hard-pressing Bulls. That worked well in a 0-0 draw up there but not so well at home, when Shields outplayed the hosts and eased to a 3-0 win. Contrastingly, the Bulls were bolder in the opening game of this season, running out 3-0 winners, with Tate Campbell providing arguably the assist of the season for Yusifu Ceesay to sweep home the third goal.
Given that the onus will be on the hosts to make the running here, it could be that a surrendering of possession and a focus on counterattacking could be the Caddis approach tactically.
Following that commanding and impressive South Shields performance at Edgar Street last season, it was baffling that the full-timers didn’t then go on to be right up in the top three by the end of the season. Instead they finished a point outside the play-offs. This season, they currently sit in 12th place, a point behind Hereford having played a game more. That looks like underachievement given the funding that affords them their full-time status.
After an indifferent start to the season, they’ve picked up a bit of late, but on New Year’s Day they lost 1-0 at home to in-form Darlington. Darlo were reportedly ‘disciplined and organised’ and set up to counterattack. It was an approach that the home side failed to break through, and is something Hereford should look to emulate. The defensive organisation that was in evidence before the Kidderminster and Leamington defeats will be needed, and no-one’s been sent off for a while now so maybe the discipline’s improving too (although there were a number of yellow cards at Leamington, with dissent seemingly still an issue, which is a bit daft really).
A last-minute penalty miss cost the Bulls a point on New Year’s Day and was a bitter pill to swallow. One point from the last three games has resulted in a slip down the table to ninth place, and is a run that will need to be arrested pronto to remain on the play-off premises.
Yusifu Ceesay missed the trip to Leamington and his absence was felt. A niggling hamstring is a concern as it’s the sort of thing that could rob him of the burst of pace he uses to get round full backs. Hopefully he’ll be back here, along with his bursts of pace and indeed his marathon runner’s energy and endurance.
Ryan Bartley’s loan spell ended on Wednesday, but efforts have been ongoing over the last fortnight to get that deal extended. If that’s not possible, at least one new loanee could be brought in at short notice to plug that gap and perhaps to inject some freshness and quality in a bid to get back to winning, and goalscoring, ways. That bumper Boxing Day payday for the club on top of an improved overall financial situation at Edgar Street may even mean that Paul Caddis is slipped a few bob to give him a little more flexibility and ambition in his recruitment. Reliable sources suggest to me that Paul Blackett, for instance, has a passion for beef, cider and Shobdon – offer him all three and he’d happily relocate, I’m sure.
You can understand that the disparity between Hereford and Kidderminster is a result of the £3.5m the Harriers chairman pumps into his club each season (£3.5m that didn’t prevent them losing at home to Rushall on New Year’s Day). To be much of a muchness with Leamington though given that they don’t have that subsidy and Hereford do have ‘an EFL-level fanbase’, contributing EFL-level money every home game through the turnstiles, is frustrating. I should say that I’m in no way advocating against fiscal prudence here. It should be a badge of honour to act sensibly in a footballing world of reckless financial insanity, but Leamington don’t get 5,000 gates. They get 500 gates.
It would feel like a good time to play South Shields if the Bulls weren’t themselves in a bit of a mini-slump, but nicking this before going into the rest of the January fixtures (all four of which are winnable with a capital W) will work wonders in making Christmas a distant memory, as it’s been a right old pudding football-wise.
COYW