On This Day – 5th February
It was on this day in 1972 that non-league Hereford United beat First Division Newcastle United in one of the most famous giantkillings in FA Cup history.
The match itself was a replay, after the two sides played out a 2-2 draw at Newcastle’s St James’s Park. All the talk before the match at Edgar Street was about Newcastle’s main target man, Malcolm MacDonald. He boasted to the media that he would score ten goals past Hereford, such was his confidence that the game would be a walkover.
The game was goalless for 82 minutes until MacDonald nodded in at the far post to give Newcastle the lead.
Then with just four minutes of the match remaining, Hereford’s Ronnie Radford hit an unstoppable goal from 30 yards out. Thousands of fans poured onto the pitch to celebrate in one of the most iconic moments of football in the 1970’s.
Radford’s goal took the match to Extra Time and in that extra half-hour, Hereford’s Ricky George hit the winner.
Hereford’s reward for beating Newcastle was a home time with West Ham United, yet another First Division side. The match ended goalless so a replay was needed to separate the two sides.
West Ham won 3-1 at Upton Park in the replay to end Hereford’s Cup run. They got some good news at the end of the season though as they were elected into the Football League.
The match was covered by BBC’s Match of the Day and a young 26-year-old called John Motson had his chance to prove himself. If Newcastle had won the match, Motson may very well have disappeared from the limelight, but with Ronnie Radford’s thunderbolt being played over and over, Motson got his lucky break and had a hugely successful 46 years at the microphone.
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