On Saturday evening at the Green Dragon Hotel, a handsome Georgian building little more than a goal-kick from Hereford’s mighty cathedral, 80 people will gather for a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest days in the city’s long history.
It will be exactly half a century since — with less than 10 minutes to go in an FA Cup third-round replay against First Division Newcastle United — a 28-year-old joiner from a Yorkshire pit village joined the footballing immortals with a 35-yard piledriver that was anointed Goal of the Season.
‘No goalkeeper in the world would have stopped that,’ cried Match of the Day’s young commentator, John Motson, on secondment to BBC television from his radio job.
50 years ago Hereford famously knocked Newcastle out of the FA Cup when substitute Ricky George scored for Hereford in the first period of extra time
Ronnie Radford’s unforgettable strike thundered past the diving Willie McFaul into the back of the Newcastle net, cancelling out Malcolm Macdonald’s goal only three minutes earlier.
The tie was then settled when substitute Ricky George scored for Hereford in the first period of extra time, completing perhaps the most remarkable feat of giant-killing in football’s oldest and most famous cup competition.
Southern League Hereford, for whom only player-manager Colin Addison worked full-time, weren’t done yet.
George’s goal completed perhaps the most remarkable feat of giant-killing in football’s oldest and most famous cup competition
The 2-1 victory earned them a fourth-round tie only four days later at home to another top-tier club, West Ham United, which they drew 0-0.
At Upton Park five days after that, they finally succumbed. A Geoff Hurst hat-trick, less than six years after the one that sent the whole nation into delirium, broke Hereford hearts.
At the Green Dragon on Saturday, the men involved in Hereford United’s epic Cup run will tell their stories while highlights of the Newcastle game run on a loop on wall-mounted TV screens.
One of the guests, Bobby Moncur, might be less interested than most in watching them.
A Scotland international, he was the Magpies captain that day and remains the last Newcastle skipper to lift any major silverware, the 1969 Fairs Cup.
‘Oh, but I’m big enough to recognise Hereford’s achievement,’ he said. ‘I have a lot of respect for what they managed to do to us.
‘It was a horrendous pitch but that’s not an excuse, it just wasn’t our day. With due respect to Hereford, we felt afterwards as if we’d disgraced Newcastle United.
‘On the way back, about an hour into the journey, I remember our manager Joe Harvey stopped the bus, then got out and was physically sick.
‘None of us took it lightly. Most of the same team got to the Cup final two years later and it was only then that we felt we’d buried the shame.’
Of course, giant-killings still happen, but the story of Hereford’s 1972 FA Cup exploits continues to capture the imagination because it belongs so irresistibly to a bygone era.
The first match was postponed because the St James’ Park pitch was waterlogged, but the decision wasn’t made until the night before.
By then the Hereford players had arrived in Newcastle and were happily ensconced at the swanky Gosforth Park hotel, thanks to the largesse of chairman Frank Miles who had made his money in the carpet business.
It didn’t please him one bit to have to fund the trip a second time a few days later, but he and the 6,000-odd Hereford fans who travelled up to the North East were rewarded with a goal by Brian Owen, almost as spectacular as ‘Ronnie’s Rocket’, inside the first 30 seconds.
Hereford’s goalscorers Ronnie Radford (top left) and George (middle left) celebrate with the team
‘Brian was a smashing lad but maybe not the most technically gifted,’ recalled Addison.
‘He went on this run down the right and we were all shouting “pass it!” Instead, Brian pulled the trigger and I thought it would end up in the Tyne. But it flew into the net.’
Newcastle then went 2-1 up before Addison himself made it 2-2, securing the replay at Hereford’s humble Edgar Street ground, which was also postponed several times.
‘We stayed overnight in Newcastle after the 2-2, then the next day when I got back to Edgar Street there were masses of people buying tickets for the replay,’ said Addison.
‘I remember being given a celebratory sherry in the boardroom and a director coming in and saying, “There’s a problem, we’ve run out of tickets”.
‘Well, the chief of police was there, a guy called John Keyte, so Frank Miles looked at him and said, “John, we’ll be all right printing a few more, won’t we?” He said “OK, but not too many”.’
On the eventful afternoon of the match — February 5, 1972 — there were fans hanging out of trees and off floodlight pylons and both goals sparked rapturous pitch invasions.
The match, which everyone had assumed would be a formality, meriting only the briefest highlights package, was duly awarded the main slot on Match of the Day and at the end of that season 26-year-old Motson was handed a three-year contract.
‘That put me on my feet as a TV commentator,’ recalled Motson. ‘I’d found the transition from radio quite difficult, adjusting to the pictures rather than just describing everything. But really that match changed everything for me.’
It also carried a note of serendipity because Motson and Ricky George were old friends, having met at the Barnet Press news-paper in 1964, and had travelled up from London together the day before to check in at the Green Dragon.
They will both be there again on Saturday but, alas, Radford is not well enough to make the journey from his home in Wakefield.
‘I know it will be a fantastic evening,’ said Radford. ‘Unfortunately, some of the guys have passed away now, but I keep in touch with all the others. It was a special time in all our lives.’