Thanks to a 3-2 home victory over Warrington Town on Tuesday night the Bulls’ moved into 5th in the National League North. A surge in form over the last few weeks has catapulted Paul Caddis’s squad into play-off contention. Next up, however, are Alfreton on Saturday, a notoriously tough opponent.
So, Billy Heath’s team are in town. Cover the childrens’ eyes and watch the skies.
The party poopers are in a bad mood as the Reds are in shocking form including losing their last five at home. They sit in 13th place, surprising for a club who were in the play-offs in the past two seasons. Their average gates have dropped by 15% to a miserable 485. Even village side Needham Market can pull in more. On the road, overall our visitors still have the fifth best form with 7 wins and only 5 defeats. This nut will take some cracking. We’ll need to be patient and ideally not concede two first half goals again.
The corresponding fixture at Alfreton was a 0-0 slog. Creditable at the time as Town were on a 12-game unbeaten run. As injury time ran out, Chapman kicked the whole length of the field to their keeper Willis. He thumped the ball back to Chapman who duly kicked the whole length of the pitch again. That summed up many matches against the Reds. Interestingly, neither keeper will play this weekend. Chapman is with Spalding while Willis is out injured since mid-January. A relief as he suffers from mysterious injuries during play and feels the need for urgent pitch maintenance before goal kicks.
This is an Alfreton without the hulking Matt Rhead (now Kidsgrove manager). The nearest replacement, the equally lumbering 6 foot 3 Jake Day wasn’t in their squad for their last game. Still big blokes rule in their back division including 6 foot 6 Max Hunt and long throw specialist Adam Lund. “Incoming!” Very much a challenge for Campbell no 2. Going to be like the rutting season. Their top scorer is midfielder Jed Abbey, also 6 foot 3, with a reasonable 9 goals. Only one of those were in 2025 and he’s often been benched recently.
Only one Bulls win (back in 2018) in 11 goes against the Derbyshire Reds, despite scoring injury times goals in at least 3 of them. Pooped on the party poopers you might say. Something especially rewarding netting against a side in the time added on because of their delaying tactics. I’ll so love it if we could add another victory.
Make sure you give the lads your support on Saturday. I have a feeling they’re going to need our vocal encouragement to get the result we all want. Get your tickets:
Print is back! The remaining hard copies of Talking Bull 145 will be on sale from Simon (by club shop) and Keith (by ticket office) with planned sub Jo Clement handling later sales. Our usual 48-page advert free offering for just £3. If you can’t make it, print or pdf available from our online shop https://www.talkingbull.org/store/
Keith will miraculously morph from seller to broadcaster to bring you the usual live commentary from Radio Hereford fc. Free radio and a fanzine? Spoilt you lot are!
Simon Wright
