Back in the mire

Four straight losses have put Hereford FC's participation in the National League North next season back in the balance, as they go again with another home game on Saturday. The visitors are Buxton, one of the world’s more unlikely full-time professional football clubs.

This is that rare beast this season, a game that’s taking place when it was originally scheduled to take place. When the fixtures came out, fans would have seen it as a potentially big clash between two play-off contenders. Sadly, it’s not that. It’s far from being that.

Buxton are top of the form table having won five of their last six games, form that’s seen them leap from mid-table nothingness to play-off contenders. Hereford are 24 points shy of the play-offs.

The Bucks did boast several ex-Bulls in their ranks, but Tate Campbell recently left for Forest Green and Ryan Mclean has gone out on loan. That leaves Sammy Robinson, a fans favourite last season at Edgar Street. He played eight minutes last Saturday as Buxton eased to a 3-0 win at home to nine-man Bedford. That was his first appearance after a month out injured.

He’ll presumably be well up for this one, and Hereford may be wise to take measures to get him bubbling over in a way the referee will disapprove of.

Connor Kirby is their star player and captain and everything goes through him.

Conditions may have played a part in explaining Tuesday's first half no-show which effectively gifted the game to Spennymoor, but yet another concession of an early goal was very hard to stomach. This season has been utterly horrible, and a crowd stubbornly still 2000+ strong on a nasty night weather-wise, a crowd full-time Buxton would kill for, is quite remarkable loyalty given what that crowd has endured since August.

In the end of course on Tuesday a draw would have been about right, but that just adds to the frustration - how is such a Jekyll and Hyde pair of 45-minute displays even possible?

The Bulls are arguably due a bit of luck in front of goal or from a defensive slip-up, and maybe it'll come here. Three points would certainly steady the ship and calm a few nerves. An alternative scenario is that Hereford are seven points from safety at 5pm on Saturday.

The Bulls are now four points behind Oxford with three games in hand, but more important than those games in hand is that Oxford are winning and Hereford aren’t. The sides above are also picking up points, and the mid-April back-to-back games against Bedford and Oxford now look very big indeed as those two are rapidly becoming the only clubs Hereford can realistically catch.

Harrison Sohna will miss this one and the next two as he serves a suspension, with Lawson Dath, if fit, available to come in.

George Munday again proved to be a handful at times on Tuesday, as did Cormac Daly, whose attitude and application must make him a joy to manage. Mikey Lane seemed to spark a bit of life into things when he came on, and Freddy Willcox was again utterly outstanding, even in that first half when nothing much was working. There should be enough there to get out of trouble, but losing four on the bounce in late March when you're already in the relegation places suggests that any escape will be a good deal more sticky and belated than it looked a week or so back.

New signing Eddy Oppong should offer some pace on the opposite flank to Cormac Daly’s, and his arrival may be a hint that a move to 4-4-2 is imminent, along with a ‘we’ll score more than you’ approach. It could be nothing of the sort of course – it could just be that Aaron Downes wanted to bring in some southern European glamour, something not typically suited to a National League North relegation battle, but if Eddy becomes the missing piece in the jigsaw he’ll have been quite a find given his not-entirely-obvious CV, which has taken in several clubs at a lower level than Hereford across the country in a short space of time, with Carshalton being the latest. It must be said that this approach to player recruitment wasn’t conspicuously successful for Paul Caddis earlier in the season, but maybe Eddy’s ‘the one’.

Something I’d very much like to see here is Keenan Quansah nodding one in from a set piece as a reward for his continually growing positive contribution to this troublesome season.

Hereford have beaten Buxton 2-1 in each of the last three matches between the sides. The same again would be very warmly welcomed at the final whistle, as would ‘nil’ against Buxton’s name on the scoreboard two minutes into the game.

COYW