From the Archives: Turner Pre-Swindon Cup-Tie

Hereford United do not have a game tomorrow as they were knocked out of the FA Cup by Yeovil in the first round three weeks ago.

However ten years ago, after a first round home win against Wrexham, the Bulls were drawn away at Swindon.

For the first of BN's look back at the Swindon tie, here's an article from www.hu-fc.co.uk much of which first appeared in the Independent.

NOT for the first time Hereford United are getting ready to play an Invincible on the FA Cup trail – a supposed invincible, at any rate reports the Independent. February marks the 30th anniversary of Hereford's famous third-round replay against a Newcastle side Malcolm Macdonald pledged would bury the Southern Leaguers under a double-figured barrage of goals. The rest, of course, is history – history that will no doubt be recalled as the Hereford team of 2001 get ready to face a Swindon Town side featuring the Australian midfield player Danny Invincible.

Romance will always be in the air when the Bulls are on a giant-killing charge – if Wrexham, their first-round victims at Edgar Street a fortnight ago, and Swindon, their second-round targets at the County Ground on Saturday, can be described as colossi of the beautiful game. The Ronnie Radford goal of the season that prompted the invasion of the Parkas and precipitated Newcastle's downfall (Ricky George actually scored the winner in the 2-1 victory) has stood since 2 February, 1972, as a symbol of the FA Cup's alluring power. Today, though, 29 years and 10 months on, Hereford could be excused for being more concerned about the finance of the FA Cup.

"Er, no," Graham Turner, Hereford's chairman and director of football, said. "The first thing for us is the romance. The club's tradition in the FA Cup has been intrumental in bringing the television cameras here so often. And that has created a lot of interest for the supporters and brought a lot of attention to the city.

"The romance is the first thing. But, with a chairman's hat on, the finance is important. There have been significant changes this year in the amount of finance available in the early rounds – both as prize money and as television and radio fees – and keeping alive clubs of this size is very important. Without a benefactor, the revenue is absolutely vital. It's a lifeline to us."

Thus far Hereford have earned £20,000 for reaching the first round, £20,000 for reaching the second and £100,000 for the live screening of the Wrexham tie – from which the Nationwide Conference club emerged 1-0 victors courtesy of a goal by (no, not that) Ian Wright and a brilliant goalkeeping display by Matt Baker. It amounts to little more than Alen Boskic's fortnightly wage but represents a huge contribution towards the Save The Bulls campaign.

"The difficulty of our situation is that the previous board entered into an agreement with developers," Turner explained. "The board took £1m worth of loans and the developers took the lease, with the long-term view of putting something different on Edgar Street. And the council, who are the freeholders, are adamant at this stage that football will remain at Edgar Street. The loan now amounts to more than £1.2m and we have to pay it back in May 2003. So we feel like a ping-pong ball being batted across the net between council and developers.

"We've also gone into a CVA, a company voluntary arrangement. And any failure to comply with that would leave us open to an instant winding up order. It's been a very precarious financial position over the last five or six years, but we are working very closely with the developers to try to find a way forward for the club."

It was somewhat different for Turner in his managerial days at Villa Park, and at Molineux, where Sir Jack Hayward did rather more than keep the wolf from Wolves' door. So why, at the age of 54, is the one-time England youth international foraging for scraps on the football breadline? "I don't think you would do it if you didn't have a feeling for the football club," Turner said. "There have been times when there hasn't been enough finance available at the end of the month, so the chief scout, the secretary and myself have not been paid. So you certainly don't do it for the money at this level.

"The most significant thing is that I was manager when the club went out of the Football League in 1997 and it has almost been a responsibility to keep it alive and to attempt to get it back into the League. There is that challenge, almost a crusade, to do it."

Two years ago, the Bulls' fighting spirit almost knocked out Leicester in the third round of the FA Cup; they drew 0-0 at Edgar Street and lost the replay 2-1 to a Muzzy Izzet goal in extra time. Now, with coach Phil Robinson in charge of team affairs and Turner concentrating on the fight for survival, the great giant-killers are dreaming of another third-round romance – and the finance that would go hand-in-hand with it.

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