"Bucks play host to the Bards on bank holiday Monday"

Match Date : August 26th, 2024 3:00 pm
Competition : Southern League Premier Central
Ground : New Bucks Head
Kick Off : 15:00

The Bucks will be hoping to make it three wins in a row when Stratford Town come to the SEAH Stadium on bank holiday Monday.

Led by former Buck Gavin Hurren, the Bards missed out on the playoff places last season by the narrowest of margins. Stratford finished 6th, missing out on the top five on goal difference alone having ended level on 69 points with 5th-placed Mickleover. And after that near miss, you would imagine Hurren and his assistant, Lee Vaughan, will be aiming to challenge at the top end of the table again this season.

Town began the current campaign with a bang by picking up back-to-back wins over Leiston and Bromsgrove. A battling draw at Kettering followed before the Bards fell to a first defeat of the season on Saturday, going down 2-1 at home to Redditch.

The Stratford squad remains largely the same as last season, with Hurren making a handful of additions to strengthen his attack. In come former Bucks Reece Styche and Andre Wright, while lively forward Owen James arrives from North Leigh. Perhaps the Bards’ most important signing of the summer, though, was the re-signing of goal getter Callum Ebanks. The dangerous striker finished as the division’s second highest scorer last season with 23 league goals.

The Bucks beat the Bards home and away druing the 2023-24 campaign, winning 2-1 at the New Bucks Head last October and running out 3-0 winners at Stratford in February.

Despite opening this season’s home campaign with a 5-1 defeat to Stourbridge, the Bucks have otherwise been strong on home soil in 2024. Kevin Wilkin’s men have won nine of their 14 home games this calendar year (nine wins from the last 11), losing just twice.

Last time out at home the Bucks ran out 5-4 winners over Hitchin, meaning that there have been an astonishing 15 goals in the two games at the SEAH Stadium so far this season. But after the Bucks recorded a first clean sheet of the campaign in Saturday’s 1-0 win at Spalding, Kevin Wilkin will no doubt be hoping that his men will turn in a defensively sound performance again this Monday. And a win tomorrow would likely lift the Bucks into the playoff places.

MATCHDAY INFORMATION

Tickets for Monday’s fixture will remain on sale up until kick-off and are available for purchase online in advance. See our ticketing page for further details.