With the euphoria and raucous noise still fresh after our 10th away league victory yesterday at Oxford, we now look forward with rare eagerness to the visit of Leamington as we aim to keep the dream alive.
If you were to handpick a NLN club as your last but one home opponents, you’d seriously consider a mathematically safe outfit who travel poorly and can’t score. We’re talking Leamington of course, defeated in their last four road games without managing one goal of their own. Their total of 13 away points all season is the third worst record in our division while 13 away goals is definitely the poorest tally. Callum Stewart’s sale to Shrewsbury in January put the brakes on the Brakes goalscoring. Veteran manager Paul Holleran has not yet found a replacement. Stewart remains top scorer with 14 despite his early exit. Like so many other non-league performers have discovered, the step up is hard. Stewart has only played 112 minutes for the relegated Shrews without scoring. He’ll probably be loaned out next season.
In the meantime, Holleran’s men have soldiered on with the same attacking trio of Landers, Berridge and Farmer because they have virtually no-one else to bring in. Right winger Landers has the best return of 9 goals in 37 appearances though he’s not netted in the last 8. The Warwickshire tea haven’t scored for nearly 400 minutes,
Leamington are a horrible football team. They foul discreetly, waste time and fall over a lot. In kind football terminology they are “resilient”. No more so than everyone’s favourite Jack Edwards, a third-generation football bruiser with 11 yellows to prove it. At 34, he appears past his best and hasn’t played 90 minutes since November. Those four straight defeats I was referring to? They only conceded five goals. The Brakes are very hard to get past. Patience will be required at the Street.
We can expect nothing more than an ugly afternoon and if victory is achieved, most likely by only a single goal margin. In eleven previous League matches between the two, the Bulls have won three. Only once have we beaten the Brakes at home in front of an audience. That was back in 2018 under Peter Beadle. On top of spoiling tactics, our team also need to battle ‘Big Crowd Syndrome’. After back-to-back defeats at Leamington (Jaiden White not putting away his late penalty on New Years’ Day remains a painful memory), we’re overdue a victory.
Don’t expect many of the Leamington average crowd of 626 to travel to Edgar Street. For them, this is a dutiful end of season affair. Home matches are challenging enough for them. There’s only 8 days left of the season for Leamington, so just have a day off guys and ease our stress!
Make sure you are there to back our squad if you can, and do your bit to ensure we can keep the dream alive.
Radio Hereford’s Keith Hall and George Holloway will bring you all the stops, starts, and occasional football.
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