Wednesday 8 March 2023

Lewthwaite's Long Wait

Chatting with a Hereford fan before last Saturday’s match, he asked who’s your top scorer.  Once we had finished laughing, we realised that none of us had a clue!

In a season where goals have been hard earned and infrequent, could it really still be Andrew Oluwabori, whose early form saw him net four yes FOUR before Peterborough decided this kind of rampant goal machinery demanded his recall.

(spoiler alert: it’s not, but having crunched the numbers, it’s pretty close)

Sheriff threatened to overtake the early pacesetter with his Barwell treble but since then has only managed two in the league. Is he better coming off the bench or starting?  The argument continues to rage.  The stats still suck.  

Measured on league goals alone, Sam Bennett leads the way with a mighty five, meaning that Phil Brown’s dubious record of finishing league top scorer on 6 is under serious challenge.  More bizarrely, Phil achieved that mark in the season we finished runners up to Kiddy, which goes to show that far better teams than this one have not optimised the art of hitting a cow’s arse with a banjo.

But among the various contenders for the Poppies golden boot this campaign, perhaps none has a bigger monkey on his back than Tyrone Lewthwaite. He won’t thank us for this, but after notching two in his first five starts, not a bad record at all, the goals have simply dried up. Well, almost. There was a certain, scrappy strike that despatched Gloucester in the Trophy, only for someone to realise that he was cup tied.  Sadly not Tyrone himself, when the team sheet was being pinned up.

The goal may have technically stood, but the footballing gods have not been kind to Tyrone since. On and on he has struggled, a few starts, a few sub appearances, a few more starts, a few more subs. Of goals not a sniff.  This must be tough when your job is, basically, to score goals, and the last one you actually managed was a bit of a disaster. 

So we’re not here to mock Tyrone (beyond his cup tie appearance memory loss). In all his troubles, he hasn’t yet ‘done a Banya’ and he still could rescue his season (and ours) with a few late strikes to end a hero.  So we say keep plugging away old son, it doesn’t matter how they go in.  Scuff one and you’ll be flying.  That golden boot is still up for grabs.

Yes, motivational appeals that the player in question will almost certainly not read.  We really are getting that desperate!   


I know that was then, but it could be again


1 comment:

  1. Different level of football obviously but I'm involved with step 6 club and we had a player who banged in four goals in his first four games of the season and was snapped up by a club that could offer him an extra fiver per game. Unfortunately he remained our leading goal scorer until way after Christmas, it was a relief when he was finally overtaken, it would have made the end of season awards a little awkward with a guy who only played four games all season winning an award!

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