Memories of Hereford by an Addick

These memories of a trip to Edgar Street nearly 20 years ago were written by Addick fan now living in Bermuda. He describes himself as 'an exiled and depressed Charlton Athletic fan'.

Hereford United 0-1 Charlton, Wednesday 4th October, 1989

I don't know what possessed us on that October day in 1989 but after a convincing 3-1 win in the first leg at Sellout three of us took the day off work and drove down to Hereford for the 2nd Round, 2nd Leg of the what was then called the Littlewoods Cup. Actually it's all M40/A40 once outside of London and it wasn't a bad journey. We had also allowed ourselves enough time to stop at Ross-on-Wye for a lovely pub lunch on the River Wye. It is a nice spot.

We then got into Hereford a couple of hours before kick off and Edgar Street and the surrounding area was deserted. We searched around for a pub but ended up walking across the cattle market which had closed for the day but whiffed like it had seen a fair bit of business and up to the ground. It was then whilst having a pee in a public toilet attached to the outside of one of the stands that holds my abiding memory of the day.

All alone doing my business, suddenly someone shuffles up to the urinal next to me. I look over, as you do and he had a Charlton top on. Now all the way down the M40, in Ross-on-Wye and doing the sights of Hereford's town centre we had seen no life of Charlton at all. So I said to him: "Blimey, a Charlton fan. I thought we were on our own?"

"What, there are bloody loads of us down the street in the pub on the corner." And sure enough with directions we set off, opened the pub door and there were about 150 Charlton fans singing and drinking their hearts out. Fantastic and one of the many reasons why in those dark Selhurst days we often chose away games over 'home.'

Anyway the game was over in 13 minutes when Paul Williams got ahead of a young Darren Peacock and stabbed in from close range leaving the tie 4-1 on aggregate. That description was given to us afterwards as we couldn't see the goal as our view from the Blackfriars Street End was so bad and I remember it wasn't until Hereford kicked off again that most of us realised that we had scored!

1989/90 was our relegation season under Sir Lennie Lawrence, it was a tough old season with dwindling crowds at Selhurst and hopes for a return to The Valley becoming less and less likely. The attendance at Edgar Street was actually 1,100 more than it was in the first leg and other than those Hereford games up until the middle of October we had only won one league game, this despite starting the season with three draws and that solitary win under the lights at Selhurst thrashing Chelsea 3-0 helping Lawrence to August's 1st Division Manager of the Month!

Charlton: Bolder, Humphrey, Reid, MacKenzie, McLaughlin, Pates, Lee, Williams, Jones, Walsh, Mortimer.
Subs not used: Leaburn, Minto
Hereford: Elliott, MA Jones, Devine, Pejic, R Jones, Bradley, M Jones, Narbett (Hemming 46), Peacock, Robinson, Tester.
Sub not used: Stevens
Attendance: 4,777

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