For our look back today we feature a couple of articles from the first few days of January 1998.
Hereford had been drawn against Tranmere in the FA Cup Third Round. The money from the tie was badly needed to keep the club afloat.
WHEN Hereford take on Tranmere on Sunday manager Graham Turner and
his players will be winners whatever the result says the Daily Mail.
Win, lose or draw a crowd of more than 6,000 will guarantee - for next week at any rate - the players will get paid!
There wasn't enough in the kitty to cover the wages last month and
manager Turner had to take a cut just to keep his job while seven
players and backroom staff were axed in a pruning operation. If it
hadn't been for the FA Cup run the cash-strapped Conference club, who
now have an administrator trying to revive their fortunes, would have
been out with the begging bowl.
Turner said: "With a bit of luck we should clear at least £10,000 after
Tranmere have taken their cut, which is mighty welcome under the
circumstances." It's a far cry from the days when he was manager of
Aston Villa and Wolves where he splashed out £800,000 to sign striker
David Kelly from Newcastle.
In a cruel twist of fate, Irishman Kelly could lead the Tranmere attack that stands between him and another taste of glory.
"The Tranmere game is a real lifeline," said Turner. "Keeping our heads
above water has been very difficult. Sometimes we've been down to the
bare bones."
Victory against the Division One club could land Hereford a glamour
fourth-round tie, earn enough cash to satisfy creditors and help them
through to the end of the season.
Turner is quietly confident.
He said: "You can't imagine Tranmere looking forward to this one. I saw
them at Birmingham last Sunday and they have some problems. If they have
another off day and we're at our best there's no reason why we can't
produce an upset."
Upsets are what the good folk of Hereford have come to expect. They
still vividly remember their last giantkilling, when they beat Newcastle
in a third-round replay back in 1972.
Tranmere are no Newcastle, but this match still gives Turner a chance to
put his managerial talents in the shop window. He said: "I've made no
secret that I'd like to have another go at the top." Turner hopes to
call on striker Tony Agana - formerly Brian Deane's partner at Sheffield
United - who has been out injured for 10 weeks.
"He still has terrific ability," said Turner. "To be honest I always
thought he was better than Deano and if he can turn it on against
Tranmere they'll have a match on their hands." But the manager's prize
asset could still be the club mascot, a prized Herford bull, Freetown
Kudos, who will be paraded around Edgar Street before the match. "He
could frighten the life out of Tranmere." he said.
This second article comes from the Times:
Graham Turner's secretary, Joan, was in her office trying to cope with
the phone calls. The new year programme was placing extra demands on
those staff remaining at Hereford United after the redundancies that
followed the club's loss of Nationwide League status last May. As usual,
when Hereford are on an FA Cup run, people wanted to know where Ronnie
Radford was.
"I have been here 18 years and I am sick of it," Joan said. Of that
goal. "Neil Grayson has got to score one to kill that Ronnie Radford
goal so we never hear that name again." She has worked under ten
managers at Hereford, but the name that keeps coming up is Ronnie
Radford.
Even Turner, the Hereford director of football, admits to being fed up
with it, though one imagines that, if the Vauxhall Conference club's
directors shared that view, they would have taken down the photograph in
the boardroom by now. It is still there on the wall in black and white:
"Goal of the Century", the caption reads, though Radford is not in
shot. The boot that launched the cannonball is 30 yards away from the
Newcastle United goalkeeper in the picture.
Goal of the century? As far as Hereford's history is concerned, it
remains so, but there are 24 months to go. However, for Grayson, the
club's leading scorer, to have a chance of granting Joan her wish,
Hereford will need to beat Tranmere Rovers in the third round on Sunday.
It is no good scoring a fabulous goal to eliminate a first division
club. You cannot score the goal of the century against Tranmere. It has
to put out a big club, like Newcastle United.
Newcastle, from the old first division, were beaten 2-1 by non-league
Hereford at Edgar Street in 1972. Radford scored the equaliser, Ricky
George the winner. At the end of that season, Hereford entered the
Football League, but, in 25 years before dropping out again, their spoon
hardly made a sound against the trophy. Now they are a non-league club
again, they are up to old tricks.
After six seasons in which they eliminated only one league club and
became one of non-league football's favourite dishes, going out to
Yeovil Town, Bath City and Hitchin Town, Hereford have rolled over two
league opponents this season. In the first round they put out Brighton,
who had consigned them to the Conference. In the second round, they
defeated Colchester United.
"I suppose, as a non-league club, there is less pressure," Turner said.
"As a league side, you are on a banana skin." Sittingbourne, from the Dr
Martens League, threw one under Hereford in the fourth qualifying round
and they almost fell. Hereford trailed 2-1 towards the end. "I looked
at the sky and asked: 'Why me?' " Turner said. "I could not believe it
could happen so soon after Brighton." But the equaliser came and now the
fourth round is beckoning. They have never been beyond that stage.
The only bull Turner talks is Freetown Kudos, the club mascot, a one-ton
Herefordshire beast occasionally pa raded before matches. Not this
Sunday, though. "Haven't had time to think about it," Joan said. There
is refreshing straight talking in Turner's replies to key questions.
Formerly the manager of Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers, is he
content at Hereford? Certainly not. Ambition still burns.
"There might be an opportunity to manage somewhere bigger than
Hereford," Turner - "a young 50" - said. "People knew that when I came
but, if the opportunity comes up, it must mean I have done something
here." Next question. Which is more important, beating Kidderminster
Harriers in the Conference yesterday or Tranmere? "It's got to be
Tranmere," he replied. No platitudes about the league being the bread
and butter.
His reasons are "financial". A glamour tie would earn Hereford some
£200,000. "That would ease our financial problems," Turner said. He did
not want to draw Tranmere - estimated profit on Sunday, £10,000 - and
does not mind admitting it. "Disappointing," he said.
Two months ago, Hereford were unable to pay the players on schedule and,
though that crisis has passed, a Cup windfall would enable Turner to
keep them on full-time next season. He has taken a voluntary 30 per cent
cut in salary and helps out wherever he can. "We do not have a
commercial manager and I take any opportunity to sell a board on the
ground or an advert in the programme," he said.
Hereford are in voluntary administration, nearly £1 million in debt.
"That means we have to keep control of our own affairs and there is no
administrator coming in, wielding an axe," Turner said. "We have a
meeting of creditors this month to sort out a deal to ease the situation
and stop the potential winding-up of the club."
One thing that Turner will not admit is that the chance of an immediate
return to the third division has gone. "You never give up hope," he
said, perhaps recalling that Brighton were 12 points adrift at the foot
of the league in December last season.
After their 4-1 win away to Kidderminster yesterday, Hereford are 19
points behind Halifax, the Conference leaders. If John Aldridge, the
watching Tranmere manager, left uneasy at the quality of Hereford's
play, he may be comforted to know that Richard Leadbeater will not be
available on Sunday. Leadbeater played a part in all four Hereford
goals, scoring three and making the other, but, as a loan signing, he is
prohibited from playing in the Cup.
Going out of the league was Turner's most traumatic football experience.
"I had never seen so many grown men cry: in the boardroom, on the
terraces, in the dressing-room," he said. If bulls could cry, Freetown
Kudos would no doubt have been standing in a puddle. At Wolves, Turner
left when abuse from fans became intolerable. At Hereford, supporters
voted to raise admission prices this season in a survival gesture.
Relegation inspired a book on the club Hereford United: The League Era .
Ron Parrott, the author, suggests that David Icke, the broadcaster
turned Green Party eccentric, is "arguably Hereford's best-known former
player", a goalkeeper in their first league season. Try telling that to
Joan.