For the final article in BN's look back at the 1971/72 Hereford United FA Cup Run, here's a report on the 4th Round Replay at Upton Park played forty years ago today.
February 14th 1972: West Ham 3 Hereford United 1
They locked seven thousand out of the ground.
Three thousand of us got into the ground. It isn't easy for three thousand to stand in for ten thousand, but if it could be done we would do it. We'd raised the roof at Newcastle, its astounding the noise just a few thousand supporters in a block can make when they're really trying. This time there was an extra incentive. We knew that many of our fellows were locked out, and we knew we had to make up for them. If anyone could do it three thousand Hereford United supporters in a block could do it.
We weren't in a block. We were scattered round the ground like a chaff thrown to the four winds. We were lost in small pockets throughout the multitude no longer an army, no longer even a brigade. Just three thousand supporters very much alone, too small to drown the ground in noise, too weak to add the neutrals to a cause they gladly would have followed with our lead. Some say deliberation ruled the seating plan, at Upton Park, while others with more charity smile sadly at an honest, grim, mistake. In either case a total roll of twenty thousand voices to United's side were butchered. This time the chips were really down, this time the roles were neatly switched around. The question now was not if we could lift the team, but could the team lift us?
What chance of that? What chance when the hopeless chaos outside the ground brought traffic to a standstill and with it the players coach? How must the lads feel, for once allowed the luxury of one day all together before a match, for once given the chance to arrive at some kind of mental preparedness before the vital game, to have it all snatched from them in a frantic scramble to the ground? To be a Southern League side playing a First Division club is hard enough. Harder still away from home with virtually all your supporters either locked out or effectively silenced. But surely impossible when, on top of it all, the overspilling crowds force you to foot the last mile to the ground, arriving barely twenty minutes before kick off, and with the merry prospect of an F.A. fine for turning up late. There was only one noteable absentee at Upton Park on February 14th. Justice.
We needn't have worried. We really needn't have worried at all.
How could we ever have doubted them after the other matches in which United were magnificent. If London hadn't believed before they certainly started to believe now, and for fourty three minutes West Ham made no material progress at all. It began to look almost as if we might do it again. In their last 276 minutes of foottball against First Division clubs Hereford United had conceded one goal. It was fantastic.
It couldn't last forever and suddenly we were losing, behind for the first time in the tie, behind but not beaten. If a miracle was about to slip away you couldn't see it on the field. Half time and losing. We stood and cheered our boys off until our voices cracked. Billy Meadows waved up to the stand, "Thank God at least they know we're here", said someone, while we waited through forever till the second half. "We're not at our best today", commented someone else. Not at our best? It's amazing how quickly you adjust to success: 1-0 down to West Ham at Upton Park and we're not at our best! Hereford United may never have such a superb compliment again.
We lost in the second half, but we lost going forward, fighting a cause that became steadily more hopeless, losing with a fire and spirit that turned defeat into the greatest triumph of them all. This was no miracle, not the merest tinge of divine assistance. We lost but how we lost, defiant to the end and never once for one second giving up. If anyone hadn't believed in our triumphs they learnt belief in the moment of our defeat. This had to be the greattest non-league side of all time. Anything less was unthinkable.
Even in defeat no one could deny United their glory. Three nil down and close to time yet somehow with the courage, and above all the sheer unbelievable cheek, to refuse to accept defeat. Three nil down and five minutes from the end and United taking residence again in the West Ham box. Suddenly we were back. Back five days and back at Edgar Street, hooting the wild clearances of Moore & Co., showing the whole damn lot of them who we were. "Hereeford, Hereford, Hereford". They knew who we were.
Home and we've lost, but home on the tube with our magnificence spread all over the evening papers carried by every other Londoner. Home to the words of Ron Greenwood that Hereford had all the glory. Home to the pleasure of so many incredible memories. Home to Bobby Moore giving condescending T.V. interviews.
The Hereford army finally went home. It has been a long journey; Kings Lynn, Northampton, West Bromwich, Newcastle and West Ham. Those of us who went will never forget it, and for the rest of our lives, whenever people talk about football, we will remember and say we were there.
(This report originally appeared in the Hereford Country Life magazine)
Text at top (next game etc)
Next: Away At AFC Fylde On Saturday October 25th At 3.00pm
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