December 1996

December 3rd:

EXETER City 1 Hereford United 1

December 7th:

HEREFORD 0 Milwall 4 (report from the Sunday Mirror)

Millwall strikers Steve Crawford and Jason Dair destroyed Hereford United in the first round of the Auto Windscreen Shield.

Dair opened their account in the fourth minute and Crawford added the second in the 48th minute.

Three minutes into the second half Crawford set up Dair for his second goal of the game.

Five minutes later top scorer Crawford wrapped the game up with his second when he beat DeBont from close range for his 11th goal of the season.

December 14:

HEREFORD 2 Carlisle 3 (report from the Sunday Mirror)

Hereford gifted Carlisle an early Christmas present when they failed to pick up the unmarked Paul Conway in the fourth minute, who easily beat goalkeeper Andy De Bont from close range.

Carlisle punished the Bulls again in the 39th minute when a harsh decision gave them a free kick on the edge of the penalty area.

Owen Archdeacon chipped the ball over the static Hereford defence into the far corner of the net for their second goal.

But Hereford fought back and Trevor Matthewson headed past goalkeeper Tony Caig on the stroke of half-time.

The Bulls levelled five minutes from time when Dean Walling conceded a penalty for a foul on Hereford striker Adrian Foster.

Up stepped central defender Dean Smith to convert the spot-kick and set up an exciting finish.

Hereford pushed forward in search of their first win in 10 games but Caig came to the rescue, pushing over a rasping shot from Adrian Foster.

And it was Carlisle who snatched victory when top-scorer Steve Hayward set up Aspinall for his excellent strike.

The Bulls have now gone 10 games without a win and only 1,588 die-hard home fans turned out after boss Graham Turner had appealed for them to get behind the team.

Dec 20th:

Northampton Town 1 Hereford United 0

Dec 26th:

Hereford United 0 Swansea City 1 (report complied from Swansea Sources)

Swansea City completed the double over Hereford today in front of a decent crowd of 4,202, which included 1,514 away supporters.

David Penny netted the only goal of the game midway through the first half.

Hereford dominated the second half with Trevor Matthewson, Dean Smith and Mika Kattila all going close but the Swans held out to record their fourth consecutive away win. The Bulls have now gone 12 games without a victory.

Dec 28th:

HARTLEPOOL 2 Hereford 1 (report from the Sunday Mirror)

Hereford were sent reeling as Hartlepool turned looming defeat into a surprise victory.

Pool had taken a third-minute lead when Kona Hislop crossed low for Joe Allon to blast home.

Hereford fought back, but wasted too many chances. In the first half Mika Kottila sent one shot wide and another over before he brought a brilliant save from Paul O'Connor just before half-time.

Then, a minute after the break, Gareth Stoker floated in a free-kick, O'Connor couldn't hold Kottila's downward header and Dean Smith converted.

Hereford suddenly started to play and they looked certain winners as they tore Hartlepool apart.

But on 73 minutes Steve Howard scored with an angled shot from the right to give Hartlepool the points.

Lineup: Andy Debont, David Norton, Murray Fishlock, Dean Smith, John Brough, Trevor Matthewson, Chris Hargraves, Gareth Stoker, Mika Kottila, Jon Cross and Rob Warner.

Sub: Ian Foster

Dec 29th:

RONNIE Radford, according to The Guinness Record of the FA Cup, only ever scored one goal in football's grand old competition reports the Independent.

"I might have got one in a qualifying round at some time but that's probably true," the man himself said on Friday. "I always played in midfield and the shots I took were all from long-range. They used to end up in the car park." Not all of them.

The vision of the right-foot thunderbolt that precipitated Newcastle United's nightmare on Edgar Street has never faded: the one-two with Brian Owen; the mud-caked caser flying into the top left corner of the Meadow End goal; the invasion of the Parka-clad population of Hereford; and the Newcastle faces as red as their unfamiliar shirts. It still seems like yesterday. "It's incredible to think," Radford said, "that it was 25 years ago."

The third round of the FA Cup next weekend marks the 25th anniversary of the glorious goal for which this particular yesterday's man will long be remembered. The BBC voted it their Goal of the Season. What made it the goal of 1971-72 or any other season was the fact that it struck an almighty blow for that beloved of all sporting species, the no-hope underdog. To a nation of incurable romantics, it sits alongside Ian Porterfield's Wembley winner of 1973 in the Mills and Boon pantheon of all-time great goals. Ricky George actually made the direct knock-out delivery, with the extra- time winner in that much-delayed third-round replay on 5 February 1972. But Radford's screamer made it all possible: the first humbling of top- flight toffs by non-League upstarts since Sunderland, Len Shackleton and all, came to grief on Yeovil's Huish slope in 1949. Hereford had already won a giant-killing moral victory with their 2-2 draw before a 39,000 crowd in the original tie at St James'. Malcolm Macdonald, famed as he was for shooting from lip as much as hip, proclaimed Newcastle would bury the Southern Leaguers under double-figures on their own patch. When he scored, with eight minutes remaining, Hereford could at least contemplate the most gallant of losses. But Supermac had reckoned without Hereford's No 11. Four minutes from time, with Macdonald at his heels, Radford let rip. John Motson was moved to a state of near-apoplexy. "Oh, what a goal!" he screamed into his Match of the Day mike. "What a goal! Radford the scorer, Ronnie Radford. No goalkeeper in the world would have stopped that." Radford - Ronnie Radford - saw it somewhat differently. "I wouldn't have been surprised if that one had finished up in the car park," he said, casting his mind back to 1972. "I still wonder why it didn't. But to the day I die I'll see the ball heading for the Meadow End net. I have the best of both worlds, I suppose. I got the view from where I hit it and I've seen it from the angle of the television camera, like everyone else." The latter view will no doubt be shown again at some stage of this season's third-round weekend. Yet the man who scored perhaps the most famed of FA Cup goals is no celebrity himself. "I never get recognised," he said. "I'm a joiner by trade and when I go on site it raises a bit of interest when some of the lads find out my name." Radford, 53 now and living in Wakefield, worked as a joiner when he was the hero of Hereford quarter of a century ago.

"The day before the Newcastle replay I was putting the roof on a house in Cheltenham," he said. "I was back up there at eight o'clock on the Monday morning. I was just the same as these lads who'll be playing for Woking, Hednesford and Stevenage in the FA Cup next weekend." Hereford's 2-1 victory earned more than the immediate reward of a fourth- round tie against West Ham, who were held to a goal-less draw at Edgar Street and were relieved to win the replay 3-1. It secured Football League status for the club at the end of that season and Radford remained as a part-time player as the Bulls, under Colin Addison's inspired player- management, charged straight up into the (old) Third Division. He hung up his boots at 34, after spells with Worcester and Bath City, and has not once lamented what might have been if Leeds United had not released him as a teenager. "I had a year's contract there, in Don Revie's second season," he recalled. "I played in the reserves with Norman Hunter, Terry Cooper and Gary Sprake. I felt like my world had caved in when they let me go but, looking back, I honestly wouldn't change a thing. I couldn't have been happier even if I'd played for England. I count myself lucky. What happened at Hereford was more than a dream come true. It was living other people's dreams. . ." Unless, of course, you happened to be a Newcastle fan when Ronnie Radford struck that dream of a goal.

FORMER Celtic starlet Garry Carberry could finally clinch a deal with a new club this week - south of the Border.

The 20-year-old midfielder has had trials with a string of clubs without success since being freed by the Parkhead outfit last season.

But Carberry has joined Hereford for a month and looks set to clinch a contract at least until the end of the season.

The club is currently lying second-bottom of the English Third Division and boss Graham Turner is desperate for new talent.