Many in the bumper crowd of 8462 are drawn to Edgar Street to see ex-player-manager and football legend John Charles, who is now doing the same job at Merthyr. Charles could famously play with equal effectiveness up front or in defence; he chose the latter in this game, so a 0-0 draw was perhaps inevitable.
Merthyr, with an eye on their finances, opt to play their "home" replay a week later at Edgar Street. Perhaps because they are at home, Charles plays up front? Hereford win the replay 3-0 in front of a still impressive crowd of 5198.
Hereford would limp out of the competition in the next round (the semi-final), losing 2-0 at Bangor City on 27/2. Their finances are no doubt also helped by the 4000 crowd.
On the Pitch: Colin Addison describes some of the football during the previous Saturday's game as splendid, before warning that the next league game away to Gillingham will be a tricky one as they have won 8 home games on the trot.
Further into the programme, it is revealed that Hereford and Merthyr had met a rivalrytastic 56 times since the war.
Off the Pitch: Only just off the pitch, the back page of the programme gives a nice view of the partially full Len Weston stand, taken during the previous round's game against Pembroke on 3rd January.
In the Opposition: The previous season, the two teams were rivals in the Southern League; however, whilst Hereford were promoted, Merthyr suffered relegation. The run through the Merthyr Players on the centre pages reveals that whilst they are now playing two levels below Hereford, they had a squad containing some decent players with genuine football league pedigree.
I have purposely avoided attempting to talk too much about the Hereford players as I wasn't fortunate enough to witness any of these games, and I guess people who were lucky enough to see John Charles play for Hereford don't really need me either. If you don't know much about him though, I would heartily recommend you google him; even his Wiki page will blow you away. In the context of this game, Charles had been Hereford manager until less than 18 months before this game and put in place many of the building blocks that Addison would utilise so brilliantly.
Beyond that, all I will say is that my mate's dad said that Charles could head a ball as hard as the other players could kick it, and being able to name drop him into any football conversation is up there with the name Radford (who didn't play in this game).
In the Charts: Blockbuster by Sweet remains at No.1.
In the Maternity Ward: 7th February - TV Presenter Kate Thornton is born.
Click on photos to enlarge.
