I hadn’t made the away trip to Gloucester over the years, so it was time to change that. It was one of the away grounds on my bucket list, though in hindsight I think it was OCD kicking in as in all honesty I haven’t been missing much. It was £14 for the away end online and the viewing isn’t great at Meadow Park. The ground has been rebuilt and it has that cheap look of a new stadium, which I am not a fan of anyway. People will tell me Edgar Street is worse as an away fan but at least the stadium has nostalgia and personally I love it there, old skool stadiums are the best. I did manage to find somewhere to park in the industrial estate free of charge prematch but then it was squeaky bum time in hoping I hadn’t been given a ticket on return, luckily I hadn’t as that would have summed this trip up in a nutshell. Not even the £4 half-time burger saved it and I wasn’t drinking, at least that would have taken the edge off this defeat. There was once again a decent following of away fans, around 800 of the 2,826.
The first seventy minutes here were very much like Leamington away where there was very little in the way of clearcut chances. Vincent had a shot that was deflected wide for a corner after Andre Wright had won a flick-on which led to a bit of melee in the first forty-five. It was pretty much speculative efforts from both teams until Jordan Thompson headed home from a free kick when he seemed to have four/or five Bulls shirts around him. That changed the match obviously and before we knew it former loanee Ollie Hulbert missed a one on one when he should have put the game to bed. I think this match summed up why he isn’t at Hereford anymore, there was a lot of running but not much end product. Harry Pinchard came off the bench and his pull-back deserved someone to get on the end of it but it alluded everyone. As the game was stretched Louis Hall’s effort produced a save from Brandon Hall but it stayed at 1-0. I actually thought the other former Bull on show, Tommy O’Sullivan had a decent game for them. There seemed to be more negativity than positivity surrounding his time at Edgar Street but you could see there was a footballer in there. As for us, we seemed quite lethargic and maybe a bit leggy which Gowling sort of said in his interview after. We never really managed to get at our opponents again and certainly didn’t deserve three points, so no complaints there.
I can’t believe we are still in with a chance of the play-offs but after the win against Bradford Park Avenue that is how it stands. There is a lot of work to do with a match against play-off hopefuls Spennymoor next and that is followed by games against the top two in the league when Brackley come to Edgar Street and then we travel to Gateshead for the final game. I will probably get shot down for this but in truth, I don’t think we are good enough to get promoted, the players that have left mid-season have certainly weakened us. That goes without saying though. The only reason we have a chance is that everyone seems to be falling over one another in a bid to get the remaining spots. I desperately want to see Hereford back in the National League but maybe now is not the time and financially we would be outmuscled even more than now as hard to believe as that is. Don’t get me wrong I would defo take promotion but it also massively concerns me, we need funding badly to progress.
Al Davies
The Gubbage and the Glory! 