Result: 3-0 Win (HT 2-0) Lee 27, Evans 44, Gane 90.
Attendance: 8,139
Hereford United: Hughes, Mallender, Naylor, McLaughlin,
Jones, Tavener, Evans, Owen (Gane), Lee, Gregory, Jenkins.
Brighton: Powney, Templeman, Ley, Piper, Gall, G Howell (Hilton), Bridges,
Boyle, Beamish, R Howell, O'Sullivan.
League Position: The win sees Hereford move up to 5th after
14 games.
On the Pitch: Youngsters Paul Lee and Alan Gane each
grab a goal; the former in only his second start, the latter on debut off the
bench.
Click on photos to
enlarge.
Colin's Comments: Addison welcomes new FA Secretary Ted Croker to Edgar Street - a role he would hold through perhaps English football's most challenging period (1973-1989). Colin takes the opportunity to acknowledge that he is a proper football man, having played for Charlton, Dartford, Headington United (the future Oxford Utd, not to be confused with Hereford-taming Oxford City), and Kiddie. Born in London in 1924, Croker had been an RAF pilot during the war, carving out the above football career despite being injured in a plane crash. Croker, who passed away in 1993, would settle in Cheltenham, where he would set up a successful engineering company. His Cheltenham roots and football/business brain would lead him to becoming Cheltenham Town president in 1987. His grandson is Cheltenham-born footballer Eric Dier.
Third Division Round Up: In his article, Ted Woodriffe flags a newspaper article that claims Brighton have offered Brian Clough £20k/year to be their manager. That is roughly £300,000/year in 2024 money. He goes on to reveal that Tranmere were getting by on average gates of 2,632 despite being in 7th place in the league. When clocking Hereford's bumper attendances, it is worth noting where crowds were in general. Whilst it was 50 years ago, this wasn't some mythical chapter in football history with 80,000 crowds and horses needed to clear crowds off cup final pitches. The 1948-49 season had seen football league attendances peak at 41.3 million throughout the four leagues. They steadily declined to 25 million in this 1973-74 season, bottoming out in 1985-86 with a paltry 16.5 million attending games (see Ted Croker's hospital pass of a spell having a steer at football). By the turn of this century, crowds had recovered to the point where they surpassed the early '70s as football reinvented itself. Last season the Premier League alone had almost 15 million punters.
Back in the 1973-74 season, 3,421,624 fans attended Division 3 games,
working out at roughly 6,200 per match.
In the Opposition: I am going to lazily lean on the below links rather than do this properly. I started looking at the Brighton line up, stumbled into the below then got lost on the Hereford page. Like all lower league stuff it is a bit hit and miss but contains some gems; anyway it is Brian Powney's fault. He was a keeper that played 386 times for Brighton (this was his last season); the said site reveals that he also liked to strut his stuff as an outfield player and turned out for Parker Pen in the Sussex Sunday League under an assumed name in the 1970s.
https://www.where-are-they-now.co.uk/
Edgar Street Chatter: Requests for pen pals have appeared in these early '70s programmes on several occasions, this time it is an A. Gibson from Preston seeking a female pen-pal. Google maps reveals that whilst the 1930s Preston address that was given has fared much better than the art of writing to a pen-pal, the front garden could do with some TLC.
Supporters' Corner: Brighton had played Hereford in the FA Cup at Edgar Street in December 1970 (Brighton edging it 2-1 in front of a 12,769 crowd - John Charles scoring for Hereford) - Phil Godsall uses his notes to recall that Brighton were very generous that day about Hereford deserving to be a league team, generosity that they unfortunately couldn't repeat a quarter of a century later.
Going by Car: The accompanying Brian Owen action shot
illustrates one thing all these old programme photos have in common: the stands
have the look of a big cup match to anyone who missed the '70s.
In the News: 26th October 1973 - Glasgow firefighters stage a one day strike, requiring the drafting of troops to provide cover.
In the Charts: Daydreamer/The Puppy Song by Metallica is
at No.1. Sorry, by David Cassidy - easy mistake to make.
On TV: "The Deadly Attachment", the first episode
of the Sixth Series of Dad's Army, is aired on 31st October 1973. It contained
the legendary line "Don't tell him Pike".
In the Maternity Ward: Actress Danielle Westbrook
was born on 5th November 1973.
