| For
every FA Cup triumph there is a disaster. For every emphatic win, there
is a heavy defeat. And then there are those games which are just soooooo
bad, that you just wish that the match is drawn and over very quickly.
All this talk of mascots brought
to mind one such FA Cup tie all too clearly. The date - Saturday 6th
January 1996. The place - Edgar Road. The match - Hereford United versus
Tottenham Hotspur. The weather - godawful. The crowd - 8806.
But the statistics don’t even
tell half the story of this match.
The rain started falling shortly
after we passed the Midlands and kept on falling until we got home. Not
since an FA Cup tie at Oldham Athletic in 1988 had I been so wet at a
football match. And that was with the benefit of being under cover this
time !! The main surprise was that the game was on at all. It was one of
those trips when you were tuned in to any radio station you could get to
obtain the latest report on whether or not the game would take place.
Arriving in Hereford, the sun
broke through just long enough for us to get a programme and get into
the ground before the deluge re-started. The pitch was what you would
expect from a Third Division ground - lumpy and bumpy with the going
decidedly heavy. Not a lot seemed to have changed since the great Parka
invasion of 1970 when the home side (as a non league team) beat
Newcastle United there. How were Tottenham’s silky skills were
expected to flourish on this mudheap ? How were Ronnie Rosenthal and
Ruel Fox going to show the folk of the West Country exactly what they
were capable of on this ground ?
The mascot bit came in the shape
of their 2 ton prize bull who was paraded around the pitch before the
game. He was lead by a man in a white coat, when really it should have
been a man in a white coat leading him away. Anyone wanting to
get that close to a year’s supply of prime beef must be a little bit
of a mad cow. But, he was harmless enough. Not what you could say for
the team !!
Well, it was one of those games
where Spurs were not really up for it and Hereford had a day to
remember. From the off they fancied their chances against the fancy dans
of White Hart Lane and it was only some last ditch defending that saved
Spurs. The white shirted home side ploughed through the mud, while
Tottenham looked all at sea and it was against the run of play that we
took the lead. It came from a shot by Darren Caskey that was going a
mile wide, but then Ronnie Rosenthal came out of the blue (or should
that be the brown) to head it goalwards and stun the Hereford
supporters. Normally it would have ended up near the corner flag, but
there the ball was nestling in the net. Joy unbounded, but then in the
second half, oops. A penalty for the U’s when Caskey and Rosenthal
were adjudged to have fouled John Pounder. Up stepped Dean Smith, who we
were informed was deadly from the spot, but then he preceeded to blast
the ball high and slightly wide and it seemed that with it their best
chance flew away with it. They kept plugging away and eventually Spurs
cracked and with a header from a corner John Brough equalised. The rest
of the match sunk into the mire and a replay at the Lane was to follow.
This is when the trouble started.
Tottenham said the bull could not come to the Lane as Hereford’s
mascot. The thought of the beast getting loose and marauding around the
stadium like a demented John Hartson was too much for the safety people
to consider risking. So the bull stayed at home and missed the 5-1
demolition of the U’s (why are they nicknamed after a sheep when their
badge is a bull?). A Teddy Sheringham hat-trick and two from Chris
Armstrong (yes, you heard right) made the tie safe for Tottenham and saw
them through to a fourth round tie against Wolverhampton Wanderers, who
were without a mascot at the time ... but that was to change !! The best
goal of the night was reserved for last and it was a blockbuster of a
shot from Gareth Stoker from 25 yards that left Walker beaten all ends
up, hit the bar, rebounded onto the back of Ian’s head and then into
the net. The funny thing was it came approaching the last minute and the
bloke who sits next to us had just gone off to collect his winnings put
on Spurs to win 5-0 !! Was he mad when we saw him at the next home match
!!
It just goes to show that mascots
can be lucky ... doesn’t it ? |
