Matt Healey gives his view on the current fixture backlog Hereford FC will face.
With another Hereford FC game called off it looks like the Bulls will have to play Saturday/Tuesday/Saturday from 17th January until at least the 21st March.
The Alfreton and Scarborough games will probably have to be played 3rd March and 17th March. That makes the next free Tuesday 24th March (Unless there are no more rearranged fixtures)
The National League/FA cannot do anything about the weather, but I do feel changes need to be enforced next season to stop things like this happening in the future, it makes things extremely challenging for players, staff and supporters this amount of matches the second half of the season. Hereford will effectively have to play 25 league games in just over 3 months and there is also the potential of an FA Trophy run and more bad weather to disrupt fixtures further. Full credit to Hereford for being proactive and switching the Peterborough Sports game back in December, as by not doing that the situation would have been even worse.
Looking at the current league table If Bedford play on Saturday, they will have played 6 more league games than Hereford and Macclesfield.
I do have some solutions to suggest, but firstly, a bit of context and history.
46 league matches need to be scheduled in from 10th August 2025 to 25th April 2026 in National League North and South, the divisions are a majority part time league with plenty of travelling for everyone. The National League North stretches from the north east of England all the way down to south Wales and the journey distances are lengthy for some clubs. As a rough example Spennymoor, Darlington and South Shields to Merthyr, Hereford, Oxford City and Bedford is roughly around 4-5 hours without delays.
In the south there is plenty of travelling too, Torquay and Bath in the west to Tonbridge, Ebbsfleet, Maidstone and Dover in the east is a lengthy trip cross country and having to navigate London/M25 traffic.
Plus, North and South teams start in cup competitions earlier compared to National League teams so there will be even more games to fit in if they go on a bit of a run.
There was a major reconstructing of non-league football ahead of the 2004/2005 campaign and this included the creation of the North and South divisions which were one tier below the Conference (Now National League). At the start It was a relatively fair north and south split with who was in it, but as teams have been promoted and relegated over the years it’s become disjointed, with the likes of Bishops Stortford, Bedford and Merthyr having to play in the north in recent years.
The old way prior to when it all changed was 3 leagues of 22 teams below the National League/Conference. Only the champions went up (no play offs) and 3 clubs came down from the National League/Conference which also consisted of 22 teams. The time Hereford United reached the Football League in 2006 the Conference was a 22 team league. It increased to 24 teams the following season.
The 3 feeder leagues below the National League/Conference consisted of a Northern League which was once sponsored by HFS Loans, The Dr Martens League/Beazer Homes was a Central and Southern league, and the teams around London and the South east part of England were in a division commonly known as the Isthmian league and was at one time sponsored by Diadora.
When Hereford first joined the National League North in 2018 it was 22 teams, in 2022/2023 it got increased to 24 so meant four extra games needed to be accounted for.
It’s extremely difficult to get promoted from the National League & National League North & South. As it stands you have to be champions, or be one of the six play-off teams.
The play offs can be particularly unfair if your 2nd and miss out, whereas if your 7th your just happy to be in it. I felt so sorry for York City last season in the National League who just missed out on automatic promotion and finished 2nd, they had 31 points more than Oldham Athletic who went up via the play offs. Its not right.
Hopefully the 3 up 3 down campaigns from the National League to EFL Division Two is approved, BUT would the National League then agree to 6 down and then 3 up from both National League North & National League South? Its currently massively bottlenecked at our level and is so hard to get out of in its current format. I lost count of the amount of play off campaigns Brackley failed at.
Anyhow back to the point of fixture scheduling.
Firstly, having no midweek game the first week is a good decision. Usually if you were away first game on the Saturday, you would then tend to play at home the Tuesday and then again the Saturday, so makes it a lot fairer all teams start their season on a Saturday and that change I agree with.
There was a midweek window Tuesday 9th September and Tuesday 7th October which could have had games and was a missed opportunity.
In my opinion there should have been a game New Years Day this season, attendances would have been higher as its a Bank Holiday, hindsight is a great simplifier regarding weather, but if the Alfreton game was played 1st January, it would have been on. I wouldn’t have scheduled games on 3rd January.
I want to point out I’m not a fan of FA Cup Replays being scrapped at all, some of Hereford United’s greatest ever games have been FA Cup replays, and lucrative away replays made the club plenty of money. I’m thinking Arsenal in 1985, Tottenham in 1996 and Leicester in 1999, but with the FA making the decision to scrap replays from the from the 1st round proper in 2024/2025, then it should also have be done right from the very start of the extra preliminary round in August, last season we played Ilkeston in a 2nd qualifying round replay and Aaron Skinner got badly injured and was never the same player for the rest of the campaign. Even though they won it was a lengthy journey for Hemel Hempstead back in September for the 3rd qualifying round replay, and part time players will have to take time off work on short notice to play in quickly scheduled replay games.
I would suspect there is hardly any financial profit made on most FA Cup replays once costs are deducted until probably the 4th qualifying round. Which makes things so frustrating for lower league clubs who do make it to the 1st round and further, as replays and TV money would generate decent revenue for lower league clubs, but this financial benefit has been taken away.
I think scrapping replays and also extra time, and games going straight to penalties if the scores are level at full time in every round of the FA Cup from start to finish is a far better option. At least the tie is then decided on the day.
Doing a bit of research on this local side Pegasus had to travel to play Hanley Town which is a 200-mile round trip a in 2023 for a midweek replay in a FA Cup preliminary round tie which they lost 2-1. That’s a huge distance for non-league step 5 players and there’s bound to be examples of further distances for other club over the years.
Realistically nobody wants to hang around for extra time on a midweek evening, remember Tamworth at home in the 3rd qualifying round in 2019, over 210 minutes of bad football, no goals and then finally penalties to put us out of our misery.
That’s why I like the FA Trophy & Carabao Cup as there’s no messing about, it’s straight to penalty kicks if the scores are level at full time. Who would have fancied going to Radcliffe for an FA Trophy replay on the 16th December if we didnt have the penalty shootout option last month.
By not having FA Cup Replays the following Tuesdays would have been free this season for North and South clubs to have midweek games. (These dates were kept free to accommodate replays)
Tuesday 16th September
Tuesday 30th September
Tuesday 14th October
Midweek League games that are scheduled later in the season could have been scheduled on the above dates when the weather is usually better. I find it bizarre the league has scheduled a round of fixtures Tuesday 27th January and Tuesday February 24th when weather is statistically colder and more risk of games being called off.
Also, why the league persists in having a league game scheduled on FA Cup 4th qualifying date baffles me.
Every season Hereford have been in NLN since 2018 (Bar the fully affected Covid one of 2020/2021 ) this fixture has had to be re-arranged, usually one of the teams involved will get through two rounds of the FA Cup, this season we got knocked out by Hemel Hempstead in the 3rd qualifying round after a replay, so we had a blank Saturday 11th October as Macclesfield who we should have played had progressed, so because of this we missed out on a lucrative Saturday game with the Silkmen who probably would have brought around 400-500 supporters and this would have been a popular hospitality fixture, which then all had to be cancelled.
As Hereford FC had to play Hemel Hempstead in a replay we didn’t have much notice to change things, but as an example Leamington also went out early in the competition so the midweek game we have scheduled with them on Tuesday 10th March could have been brought forward to have been played on the 11th October, alternatively if clubs that have been knocked out don’t fancy bringing a game forward and would prefer a rest, it then gives teams the option of a blank Saturday on 4th qualifying round date to do whatever they want.
But the beauty is this is known in advance when the fixtures are released, so that 4th qualifying round date is either a blank Saturday, or the option to switch a fixture scheduled later in the season to that date if workable between teams.
Hopefully things will be looked at next season for National League North and South clubs to benefit teams and supporters, and thus reduce unnecessary fixture congestion.