Football Season Guide

Hereford start life in the Conference having suffered an agonising relegation right at the end of the League Two season in May. The Bulls ended the campaign with two wins against top guns Crawley and Torquay but at the same time Barnet came from behind to win their game and stay just above Hereford in the table. At the end relegation was inevitable for a team that struggled badly for form during the season and won just four league games between October and April. Richard O'Kelly left the club after failing to prevent relegation and the board handed the reins to former York boss Martin Foyle who reached the play-off final in the Conference in 2010 but left the club five months later. Foyle knows the league well but it is a leap of imagination to see the team challenging for the top places in their current state. The few quality in the quad, namely Adam Bartlett, Yoann Arquin and Tom Barkhuizen, have either left the team or return to their parent clubs. Foyle have had to work with a very small budget and the squad is barely big enough for the start of the season. A few of the players currently trialing are expected to sign deals but for now the only half-decent additions are James Bitter who will be between the sticks and Marlon Jackson who could be a dangerous player out wide and up front. For now though, Hereford are still a work in progress and the team is likely to go through a few phases of transformation before one could give a verdict for their chances. As of now, anything above mid-table will be a big overachievement for the Bulls.