Jan 6th:
HEREFORD have signed Leroy May, a striker who was released by Walsall last season, for a four-figure fee from Tividale of the Boddington's League.
Jan 9th:
LEROY May made his first start for the Bulls against York at Edgar Street. The match was drawn 1-1.
Jan 23:
HEREFORD 1 Barnet 1 (Att 2591)
April:
MELANIE Westall-Reece has left her promotions job at Hereford United football club to administer Andrew Foley's estate at Stoke Edith.
May 8th:
Hereford have put Halifax out of the League and the only goal of the game was scored by Derek Hall who used to play for the Shaymen. Nearly 7,500 watched the match.
June 1st:
Defender David Titterton has left Edgar Street for Wycombe Wanderers. He made 51 appearances for the Bulls since joining from Coventry in September 1991.
Aug 31st:
HEREFORD United 3 Wycombe Wanderers 4 Attendance 2847
Oct 9th:
CREWE 6 Hereford 0
Biggest win of the day at Crewe.
Oct 16th:
HEREFORD United 5 Colchester 0
Hereford's Chris Pike scored a hat-trick came against three different goalkeepers as Colchester become the first club to have two goalkeepers sent off in the same fixture. Roy McDonough took over in goal after Keeley's dismissal until halftime, and then Nathan Munson came on.
Hereford scorers were: Pike (3), Fry, Hall .
The game was watched by 1848
Oct 23rd:
Bury 5 Hereford United 3
The Hereford United coach arrived late at the ground.
Nov:
Midfielder Andy Reece joins Hereford United from Walsall where he has been on loan from Bristol Rovers.
Nov 6th:
Reece made his first start for the Bulls against Chester at Edgar Street. However he was on the end of a 5-0 defeat. Colin Anderson helped the Chester cause by conceeding an own goal. 2092 watched the game.
Nov 10th:
FROM the Independent:
Everyone must have seen that goal wrote Huw Williams. It's replayed every time Grandstand runs through the 'Magic of the Cup'. I can see it now. Ron Radford wins the ball in midfield. He plays it forward, and much to his surprise, gets it straight back. It's teed up on a clod of mud and Radford hoofs it 35 yards into the top corner of the Newcastle net, to be engulfed in hordes of youths in army surplus clothing. (This event is now enshrined in local lore as the 'invasion of the parkas'). Hereford go on to win 2-1 and one of the great FA Cup giant-killing acts goes into the record books.
I remember as if it was yesterday. Trouble is, I wasn't there. Having bunked off A-level maths and queued for three-and-a-half hours to get a ticket, I sold the damn thing because the game was rearranged, and clashed with, of all things, my university interview at Sheffield. This has been one of the few enduring regrets of my life, as the game was postponed again, to a day when I could have gone. Naturally, my pal wasn't going to sell the ticket back, so I missed the game.
I missed the fourth-round match at West Ham, too, due to a combination of traffic on the North Circular and the match not being all ticket. By sticking my head out of the roof of the coach, I saw the ball above the stand once. Apart from that we had to settle for listening to the 3-1 defeat on the radio in the pub.
On Sunday we start a new Cup run away to Cambridge City. That one 21 years ago powered the bid for League status. The club was at that time in the old Southern League Premier Division, and were voted into the Football League for the 1972-73 season. Barrow were the unfortunate departees. Hereford's League career started with the chairman talking about the First Division within 10 years. Wimbledon were to achieve this subsequently, but it wasn't to be for Hereford, although things started well. The first season saw us up to the Third Division as runners up, three years later up to the Second as champions, under the managership of John Sillett.
These dizzy heights were obviously too much. Relegation from Second to Third was followed, as night follows day, by relegation to the Fourth , where we've languished ever since. The agonies of re-election have been survived three times, and financial ruin just about staved off, and here we are 'bumping along the bottom' of our own footballing recession.
Crowds have, not surprisingly, dwindled. I remember 8,000 to 10,000 regularly packing into the 'compact' ground. These days it's a rare event to get more than 3,000.
One thing about watching lower division football is that you see promising youngsters on the way up, and seasoned old pros on the way down. In the latter category we have had the great John Charles, Terry Paine, Ian Bowyer and the current player/manager Greg Downs in a Hereford shirt. Those who have gone on to bigger and better things include Kevin Sheedy and QPR's Darren Peacock.
But for real celebrity, who can compare with the messianic figure of David Icke who kept goal for United in the Seventies? Most fans feel you have to be slightly mad to watch Hereford, but Icke is living proof that it helps to be one can short of a six-pack to play for them, too.
Seventeenth place in the bottom division has become a hard habit to break in recent years, but each new season begins with renewed optimism. One or two signings, a bit more luck . . . you persuade yourself that it might just click this season. However, it looks like being another long, hard struggle again this season, battling on with limited resources and dwindling crowds, along with most of the other clubs in the division.
Glory, even in its fleeting moments, is what sport is all about. That's why things like Ron Radford's goal are still talked about 20 years later. What we need is something to take the place of that memory, some glory for today. It's hope of that which sustains us, keeps us going back, in common with supporters everywhere.
Nov 14th:
CAMBRIDGE City 0 Hereford United 1 (report from the Independent)
Cambridge City were five minutes away from securing a fully deserved replay at Edgar Street when Chris Pike headed the goal which decided this first-round tie at a windswept Milton Road yesterday.
City were denied a return to the home of their former Southern League rivals because the previously unimpressive Pike was left unmarked at the far post to head in a rare accurate cross from the Hereford winger, Max Nicholson.
'We more than matched them, but they had the luck,' said Steve Fallon, City's player- manager, who played over 400 games for Cambridge United.
The Beazer Homes League side's FA Cup record is nothing to boast about: yesterday was their first appearance in the first round proper since 1966, and their first home cup tie against a Football League club. But Hereford, third from bottom of the Third Division, were hardly an advertisement for the professional game.
Although their little-and- large back-line partnership - the lanky Kevan Smith and their player-manager, Greg Downs - both had fine games, their most reliable defensive tactic was the offside trap.
The swirling wind disrupted the first-half play, with neither side able to create any flowing football. The first half-chance did not arrive until the 20th minute when City's left-back, Mark Scott, swung in a free- kick from the touchline and, after a neat lay-off from the 36- year-old Gary Grogan, Steve Gawthrop shot just wide.
The visitors' best chance of the first 45 minutes came when a deep cross from Smith dropped over the home defence to an unmarked Pike, but the former Cardiff centre-forward lifted his shot woefully high and wide.
Nine minutes after the interval, the part-timers came close to taking the lead. Fallon's long clearance found the left winger Paul Coe, who outpaced Downs and charged into the penalty area. But with only Alan Judge to beat he shot into the side-netting.
Gawthrop, strong and determined throughout, turned and shot wide when a Tovey free- kick found him unmarked, but four minutes later came Pike's decisive intervention.
Hereford United (1-3-3-3): Judge; Downs; Clark, Smith, Anderson; Fry, Reece, Hall; Pickard, Pike, Nicholson. Substitutes not used: Morris, Abraham, Thomas (gk).
Hereford United were drawn against Bath City in the following round.
Nov 14th: Hereford are pitted against Brentford in round two of the Autoglass Trophy at Edgar Street on November 30 at 730 pm
Nov 23rd:
Bass Brewers are after money from Hereford United. They have an outstanding 'charge' against the club.
Dec 5th:
BATH City 2 Hereford United 1 (report from the Independent)
HEREFORD UNITED will be hoping that they do not encounter Paul Batty when they embark on next season's FA Cup campaign. This time last year, Batty was a member of the Yeovil Town side that denied Hereford a third-round home tie against Arsenal, and in yesterday's second-round tie at Twerton Park he became Bath's hero three minutes after rising from the substitutes' bench.
There seemed little threat to the visitors' goal when, 12 minutes from full-time, Batty advanced from his own half. As the 29-year-old shop assistant made progress the Hereford defenders backed off, allowing Batty the time and space to thrash the ball into the roof of the net from 25 yards.
Thanks to their substitute's spectacular winner, the GM Vauxhall Conference club earned the dubious pleasure of a third-round tie at Stoke City. Yet Batty's strike was untypical of a scrappy, often spiteful match. Much of the play was crude and clumsy, with little sign of subtlety.
Hereford did not deserve to lose to their former Southern League rivals. The Third Division side had more chances than their hosts, but only made one count, when Derek Hall arrived at the far post to head Howard Clark's accurate right- wing cross past an exposed David Mogg.
That 56th-minute goal cancelled out Bath's opener, scored in the last minute of the first half. The bustling Adie Mings found his way blocked when he tried to dribble round Alan Judge, but the Hereford defence failed to clear the ball and Nicky Brooks, wide on the right of the area, drove it high into the net from a narrow angle.
That was Bath's first shot on target of the first half, and it came a minute after Hereford missed their best chance of the half. Put through by Owen Pickard's neat pass, Chris Pike beat two defenders but sent his shot a foot wide.
After the equaliser, Gareth Davies saw his header, from a left-wing corner, deflected on to the Bath bar. Five minutes later Hereford fell behind, and their desperate late pressure was to no avail.
Hereford United (1-3-3-3): Judge; Downs; Clark, Smith (Anderson, 29), Davies; Harrison (May, 82), Reece, Hall; Pickard, Pike, Nicholson. Substitute not used: Thomas (gk).
Referee: V Callow (Solihull).
Dec 1st:
Chris Fry moved to Colchester from Hereford on a free transfer.
Dec 10th:
A manufacturer is advertising 1972 replica Hereford United shirts in a Sunderland fanzine.
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