A look back to this day in 1991 when Burnley were the visitors to Edgar Street.
This report of the game is taken from a longer article from the Burnley supporters site - https://www.uptheclarets.com/ten-men-burnley-beaten-at-hereford
Saturday 14th September 1991, however, was not a good day for those Clarets who made their way to Edgar Street to see us play Hereford United. Just 11 months earlier, we’d suffered a horrible 3-0 defeat there and ahead of this encounter manager Frank Casper said: “We lost at Hereford last season because we weren’t tight enough at the back. This season we are getting to grips with things better at the back and if we play to our full potential I am sure that we can get the right result. There is an excellent team spirit and we have already settled one score from last season by beating Doncaster Rovers at Belle Vue. This season we are going to Hereford with a bit of a run under our belts and I am sure they will find us harder to handle than they did last year.”
Burnley suffered a blow ahead of kick off with influential midfielder John Deary declared unfit because of a back muscle injury. The better news was that both Mike Conroy and Roger Eli were passed fit after suffering niggly injuries whilst Joe Jakub was back in contention after recovering from the injury sustained in the Rumbelows Cup game at Wigan. Andy Farrell came in for Deary with Jakub taking his place on the bench in a game that was described by Edward Lee in the Burnley Express as another nightmare on Edgar Street.He reported that we’d only ourselves to blame for the defeat in 1990 but this time the fates were stacked against us. “David Hamilton had one of those days …” was the headline a week earlier and it was proving to be one of those seasons for him. Having been so unfortunate to be sent off in the draw against Crewe he lasted just 15 minutes here before having to be helped from the field with a back injury. That meant Farrell had to move to right back with Jakub coming on to partner Mark Yates in the centre of midfield.
If that wasn’t bad enough, only nine minutes later Burnley were down to ten men when John Francis was sent off in near farcical circumstances. There was an incident off the ball that left Francis down injured and whilst he was receiving treatment he was told by referee Peter Jones that he was going to be sent off. Jones later confirmed that he’d been sent off for elbowing Hereford’s Mel Pejic but after the game both Francis and Pejic confirmed that such an incident hadn’t happened.
Prior to that, it had been a terrific start to the game between two in form teams. Hereford came close in the very first minute, only to be denied by Andy Marriott, but Burnley were just about the better of the two sides. That changed with the Francis incident and within three minutes the Clarets found themselves a goal down as well as being a man down. A Simon Brain shot was saved by Marriott but the rebound fell kindly for Steve LOWNDES who made no mistake.
By half time we were thankful for the goalkeeping of Marriott who subsequently made three good saves to keep the score at 1-0 at the interval, after which Burnley switched to a flat back four.
Eli almost brought us level with an early chance but on 56 minutes the game was taken beyond Burnley when Hereford doubled their lead. Mark Monington carelessly lost possession of the ball just outside his own box. That enabled Brain to cross the ball for Peter HERITAGE to score. Hereford settle for that in what then became a tedious second half although Burnley should have had the clearest of penalties right at the end of the game only for Jones to incredibly award a free kick for handball outside the box.