Peter Isaac With Hereford

 

A few notes from the BN archive about Peter Isaac, picture from Matt Healey, who celebrates his 90th birthday today.

His words from a Guardian Article published in 2007

'The town is all about football and farming. I played for Hereford - a family-run club where the directors cleaned the windows - for eight seasons as a goalkeeper and worked there for 30 years, and this was an unbelievable fairytale feeling. All the press came down from London - they loved a pint in the bar, so we shared a few. Roy Short was a regular policeman at Edgar Street and was always in the dressing room enjoying a drink - at the end of a game there would be eight empty pint glasses on the ledge outside. Well, after Ricky's winner he took off some of the players' boots, and a photograph got into the national newspapers. He got a right rollicking from his boss.

Roger Griffiths, our right-back, was injured early on. When I treated him, Roger -who died last year - said: 'I'm in pain, but I'll be all right.' So I put on cold water and he continued. It turned out to be a broken leg. Adrenalin and the atmosphere must have kept him going until he was subbed by Ricky George after Malcolm Macdonald's goal.'

Isaac was featured in the Bulls Advent Calander from 2014:

Number fourteen on the Bulls Advent Calendar is Peter Isaac.

A goalkeeper in the day when they were more akin to punchbags than an endangered species Isaac joined the Bulls in 1960, having previously played for the likes of Northampton in the 50's, and has barely left since. 

The club's "trainer" for the 1972 cup run, long before the days of actual physios, he held the post - and many others - into the 1990's. Isaac was in goal when the Bulls beat Millwall in the 1965 FA Cup encounter, with his opposite number - Alex Stepney - destined to win the European Cup with Man Utd. 

Now 78, Isaac still lives in Hereford and is a regular attendee at Edgar Street alongside Colin Addison.

Finally speaking to Matt Healey at the Hereford United reunion in 2019: 

"When I joined Hereford, it was a family-run club, so once I finished playing and went on the other side, I tried to keep it that way.

"So all the lads came in, I tried to treat them as I was treated because Hereford United was one of the best non-league clubs going at the time and they've done brilliantly over the years.

"All these lads wanted to come to Hereford because they knew they were coming to a good club and were well looked after.

"Everything was done properly and had the best of everything."