On August 4th 1993, Hereford played Coventry in a pre-season friendly.
This memory comes from the Coventry City Former Players Association.
On this day (4th August) in 1993 the Sky Blues took on Hereford United in the second of their four pre-season games of the season. Hereford, who were then a non-league side, were relatively frequent friendly opponents, mostly in the pre-season period, right back to the sixties and the two clubs had a number of managerial and playing connections. By way John Sillett managed both clubs as well as playing for CCFC, Bob Dennison managed the Bulls and was on the management staff at Highfield Road and, later a controversialist, David Icke played between the sticks for both clubs. CCFPA member and our popular 1987 Sky Blues F.A.Cup winner Greg Downs was billed as left back for the Bulls against his former club (and also their No.7 Derek Hall started his professional career at Highfield Road in the eighties)!
Pre season friendlies and testimonials were also played at Edgar Street in 1966/7; 1967/8; 1969/70; 1972/3; 1974/5; 1987/8 and 1992/3 as well as later in 1999/2000. You may find coverage of some of them in these ‘Matchday Memories’ pages. The floodlit match on this day was a billed as the ‘Brian Preece Memorial Match‘. In fact the two teams had also contested the same fixture to benefit the ‘Brian Preece Memorial Trust‘ the previous November. The fund was in the name of a local man who had been killed in 1992 after a career with United, Newport County, Minehead, Trowbridge and Gloucester.
Former Sky Blue striker, now the club’s manager Bobby Gould, took his Premiership side to Edgar Street on this day having seen them lose 3-2 to Ayr United in the previous pre-season game. he was probably greatly relieved that in this evening’s game the Sky Blues ran out narrow 2-1 winners! Sadly, we do not have the actual team details or scorers to hand though the selected teams are shown in the programme.