Continuing BN's look back at matters 15 years ago, today two reports on the Brighton game as published in the Independent:
HEREFORD 1 Brighton 1
Relegation happens over a season, not just in one game, but that will be no consolation to Hereford United who lost league status yesterday after their fellow Third Division strugglers, Brighton, claimed the draw that allowed them to stay up by virtue of a better scoring record.
After 25 years in the lower divisions, Hereford are down into the GM Vauxhall Conference - a league whose increasing strength makes the romance of an instant return unlikely.
Nevertheless Hereford played valiantly yesterday and took what promised to be a vital lead through a cruel own-goal. But a Brighton equaliser from Robbie Reinelt, just eight minutes after he had come on as substitute, proved an insurmountable hurdle for the home side - many of whom left the pitch in tears at the realisation of their fate.
For Brighton, who brought close to 3,500 fans with them - truly a flock of Seagulls - the game completed a remarkable escape generated since the appointment of Steve Gritt as manager last December.
"I was glad when the game started after all the hype," a breathless Gritt said afterwards "But I wouldn't want to go through all that again."
For his Hereford counterpart Graham Turner, the day was too much to bear. Later, with the ground now deserted, he quietly announced his intention to offer his resignation. "I have to take responsibility for what's happened here over the season. I've just been into the dressing-room and it's awful in there. But that's football I suppose."
Hereford's tenure on the league had looked secure for the first hour as their powerful three-man attack of Tony Agana, John Williams and 18- goal top-scorer Adrian Foster put the Brighton defence under constant pressure.
Their enterprise in the context of a brutally tense occasion was almost heroic although the circumstances of their goal were a perverse form of divine intervention. Agana wrestled free inside the Brighton box and was able to turn the ball across the face of the goal, where Foster was waiting but Brighton's Kerry Mayo stuck out a foot to send the ball into his own net.
The young midfielder fell face down on the turf so abject was his misery and a suddenly nervous Brighton did well to complete the half without conceding the second goal that would have done for them. But as the clock ticked on towards the drop zone Hereford's energy drained away while Brighton were urged on by their increasingly frantic travelling support.
A poor goal-kick by the Hereford keeper Andy de Bont set up the Brighton equaliser with Craig Maskell's volley rebounding from the post for Reinelt to tap home.
Chances opened up at either end but Hereford had the best in injury-time when Foster was put clean through but could only drive his shot straight into the relieved hands of Mark Ormerod. The Hereford fans slumped in despair.
At the final whistle a huge line of riot police occupied the pitch to prevent a wedge of home fans from getting to the Brighton end. But there seemed little malice left in these melancholy supporters, who were applauded sympathetically by their Brighton counterparts, fans who know only too well that the misery could have been theirs.
HERE'S a YouTube Video from the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4SyMPHlwn8
AND another longer video at: http://vimeo.com/23283912
The second report:
It started with more than a century of League history on the line, and it ended with a chubby, cheerful middle-aged man waving a toupee in front of a huddle of reporters and then perching it on his gleaming crown. Such was the mood at Edgar Street on an afternoon when the tension threatened to drive everyone mad.
Strangest of all, the jolly man with the wig was Peter Hill, chairman of Hereford, who had just watched as his team, the ultimate victims of Brighton's astonishing run of results in 1997, were stripped of their League status - unless the League's plan to bring in 16 Conference teams and regionalise the Third Division comes to fruition.
The hairpiece, Mr Hill assured us, was "to wipe the tears away", and on the terraces at least, there were plenty of those, whether of grief or relief. This was perhaps the scrappiest 1-1 draw all season in a division which sees more than its share, yet for the 3,500 among the sell-out crowd of 8,000 who had travelled from the South Coast, no point could be more precious.
Their hero, too, is far from fully thatched, but as the Brighton fans love to sing of Steve Gritt, "he's got no hair, but we don't care". The Seagulls' form since Gritt's arrival late last year, when the side were 11 points from safety, has been exceptional, particularly at the now defunct Goldstone Ground. If they can pick up the same thread next season, wherever their new home might be, any late-season dramas are likely to concern promotion, not relegation.
Not that you would have thought it during a desperate first half. Hereford, who had to score, lined up 3-4-3, and proceeded to swarm all over the visitors. Tony Agana was magnificent, winning four out of every five of the long balls which were fired at him with tedious regularity, while his pace and strength were a constant problem for the Brighton defence. Within minutes, they were nervous to the point of panic, and never more so than after 20 minutes, when Kerry Mayo attempted to put a low cross behind for a corner only to find his own net instead.
The Seagulls had one foot in the Conference, and the second might have followed after 34 minutes, as Agana beat Mark Ormerod's wild rush outside his area and crossed for Adrian Foster, whose headed attempt was blocked. In the final analysis, though, what condemned Hereford was their defeat at Orient seven days earlier.
Brighton's salvation arrived with 26 minutes left. Craig Maskell's excellent long-range volley beat Andy deBont and then passed him once more on its way back from the far post. Robbie Reinelt, a recent and influential substitute, applied the finishing touch.
The tension was now unbearable, and it was Hereford who felt it most as they set off in search of another lifeline. Passing and discipline disintegrated, but even then, Foster wasted two excellent chances - as, admittedly, did Maskell - before they finally slipped out of the League.
"I feel totally responsible," Graham Turner, Hereford's manager, said afterwards. "I'm going to take Monday off, it's a Bank Holiday after all, and then I'll come in on Tuesday morning and do the decent thing by handing in my resignation. Then it will be up to the people around me."