Still not warming to the Bulls

A couple of seasons ago a group of us had a great chat with a couple of Hereford fans at their local Wetherspoons.  They were about to be handed the Southern League Trophy (the team, not the fans) having won that league in rapid succession to winning their previous few division.  The Hereford fans we chatted to were pleasant, dedicated, passionate yet still self-effacing in that way only non-league fans can be.  Years before I'd had a chat with a Hereford United fan at Rockingham Road when their previous incarnation had been dumped briefly out of the Football League.  He, too was good company.  Last season I got into a long chat with the guy who ran the (world's smallest) snack bar in the away end at Edgar Street.  Also a top-bloke.

So why is it, when my personal dealings with Hereford-folk has been so positive, that my overriding sense of Hereford FC is "what a bunch of c*nts?"

It's always easy to take against clubs who give off the impression that any division they are playing in is ALWAYS at least one level lower than they should be.  Or clubs that claim the achievements of a previous incarnation which they were happy to rid themselves of when it was expedient.  Or employ Managers, teetering on the brink of the sack who get games called off because they aren't up for the battle.

Or crassly write about upcoming opponents using, without equivocation, phrases like -

"The Poppies are hopeless, and look to be heading back down to the Southern League"

"The Bulls are playing Kettering and should win this encounter"

Over the years Patgod has very occasionally discussed the opposition in less than flattering light.  I know, difficult to believe.  But we like to think that we wrap our barbs in a layer or two of irony or light sarcasm. Perhaps the writers of these lines above might try to flower-up their imagery and still get their point across?

For example, and they can borrow these and insert into the previous articles absolutely free of charge!

"The Poppies have had a bad start to the season, with most of their own fans admitting they've been hopeless so far.  If they don't extract their digits pronto a swift return to the Southern League surely beckons...."

We KNOW we've been hopeless.  We just don't need a smug arsehole telling us.  In the same way we KNOW our town centre is the worst in the UK.  But woe-betide any outsider who has the nerve to tell us the same fact.

Also, feel free to use this correction -

"The Bulls are playing Kettering and should win this encounter.  Because we're so great and they are so rubbish.  Proven by the fact we are a MASSIVE 4-points better off than them and won one whole game more than they have.  Because they're hopeless and we're the greatest team ever.  And we are sure to be back in the Football League any day soon if it wasn't for the fact that (A) we've never actually played in the Football League, and (B) we can't quite seem to stop being lower table National North fodder."

There you go.  All sorted.

Forthcoming Fixtures

Boston (A) – postponed – they’ve got Covid

Blyth (H) - postponed – they might have Covid

Guiseley (H) – postponed – no hand sanitiser in the ref’s changing room

Hereford (A) – postponed - they had it, they feel better but have called it off again because the game still feels a bit too soon

Kidderminster (A) – postponed – the soup tastes like it might have Covid

York (A) – postponed – ground requisitioned as a test centre

Telford (H) – postponed – waterlogged pitch

Brackley (H) – postponed –  during the Telford pitch inspection, to save time

Alfreton (A) – postponed – combination of Covid, frozen pitch and a tummy bug

Brackley (A) – postponed – they’ve fluked their way to the 3^rd Round and prefer to focus on that

Gateshead (H) – postponed – see Telford above

Farsley (A) – postponed - it’s too cold for outdoor games

Darlington (H) - postponed – allergic reaction to vaccine. And the pitch is still a bog. 

Spennymoor (A) – postponed – no one can be arsed any more

That sound you hear? Could be my teeth gnashing......

 I made the mistake of sitting through the seemingly endless FA Cup 1st Round highlights package the other day.  Big mistake.  Rather than my enjoy the ups and downs, the great goals and the great stories three competingly dark thoughts ran around my head.

"How come THEY are in the FA Cup 1st round and we don't get as much as a sniff anymore?"

There are truly some obscure outfits regularly popping up in the First Round nowadays.  Why are Camberwick Green Rovers and Tweedle Dum FC beating Football League teams with gay abandon when we can't get past teams like Sutton Bloody Coldfield, Nant Bloody Wich and Bamber Bloody Bridge?  And there's so many non-league teams in the First and Second Rounds Proper these days.  I'm certain when we used to get so far in the competition there were almost no non-league teams left.  Now they clutter up the fixtures with their battling displays and heart-warming stories.  Yesterday's Second Round draw guarantees at least three non-league teams will still be in the competition when the Big Boys join in.  Obviously Spurs will draw one of them and put thirty goals past them to take our place as all time top scorers.....

Part of me wants to applaud the efforts of fellow non-league teams in getting so far in the FA Cup, but I fear a far more substantial part of me (roughly 99%) wants them all to fail and for us to still be in there, which, had we not lent Brett out in the midst of a contagious pandemic we might still have been.  Still, he got some useful game time....

"Since when did those crappy little teams we used to beat for fun get such fantastic stadiums?"

There are a depressingly large number of clubs that were so far in our rear mirror a decade ago, with dog-rough facilities and a tar-pit for a pitch who seem to be playing matches in brand new stadiums on billiard table flat pitches.  I mean, c'mon!  Isn't it enough we've traded in Rockingham Road for a poorly draining bog in Burton?  Does everyone else really have to choose the exact same moment to open new super-stadia with professionally manicured lawns for pitches?  Talk about taking the piss!

"THEY are a Football League Club?  How the f*ck did that happen?"

I've watched enough of Quest channel on a Saturday night to finally accept that the likes of Morecambe, Stevenage, Crawley, Forest Green, Burton Albion,  Cheltenham, f*cking Barrow and, jeez...."Championship" Wycombe (!) are actual Football League clubs.  Playing in the Football League.  On merit.  Even f*cking Barrow.

But I draw the line at seeing Harrogate listed as one of the "92".  Actually, Harrogate qualify for all three of my desperate questions.  They are in the Cup, they've got a greatly augmented ground AND somehow they're in the Football League!  

When we last played Harrogate at their place, a dozen years ago when we were on our way to the Conference North title, and they were hanging on to a place in that division, plying their trade in their homely stadium.  I recall chatting to an ancient Harrogate supporter who confided to me that (a rather bored) JP Marna was the classiest player he had ever seen...!

Back then we were on the way to Conference National, propelled by the dream team of Imraan's financial acumen and Mark Cooper's all-out-attacking flair, with the Football League our next step whilst Harrogate were looking at the Northern Premier League and fixtures against the likes of Sutton Bloody Coldfield, Nant Bloody Wich and Bamber Bloody Bridge.

Except, it didn't quite work out that way.  But if Harrogate's elevation manages to grind my gears I can only imagine the reaction of York City fans as they slithered down and then out of the Football League, and then slumped out of The National League into the Northern section while the team from the "village" just down the road effectively took their place.  York City fans aren't the most mentally stable at the best of times, so this must have totally blew their angry, entitled minds!

Actually, the thought of York City fans doing their impotent nut at the "unfairness" of Harrogate's success has quite cheered me right up again!  Hooray for Harrogate!

Betty's Cafe - no longer the most famous
place in Harrogate