Black Mountains Derby - What Nonsense!

Glynis Wright looks back at yesterday's cup game.

Since when has any game involving Hereford and Cardiff City been designated a “Black Mountains Derby”? Well, that was the name given this tie by ‘SkyBet’ apparently. I was first made aware of the existence of this nonsense by the almighty amount of snorting coming from our ‘office’: His Nibs, trolling around the internet before our departure, came across the phrase pretty much by accident, hence all the indignant snorting sounds I heard! Talk about scraping the bottom of the journalistic barrel: I had vivid pictures of some bored hack sitting before a PC, racking his brains desperately in order to impart a novel twist upon an age-old theme, then, looking within the pages of some old atlas in desperation, seeing the metaphorical cranial ‘light bulb’ come on. ‘I know!’ thinks he, ‘Let’s call it The Black Mountains Derby! After all, nobody will know any better, will they?’ Yeah, right….

Still, such things were reduced to the status of minor quibbles as we revelled in distinctly spring-like climes, a continuation of the remarkably mild weather we’d both experienced yesterday. Yet another early start for a game, but what the hell: the sun was shining, the sky was predominantly blue, with but a few aircraft con-trails here and there to detract from the overall ambience. And crocuses in full bloom on the Hagley Road, Birmingham? In January? Blimey, this global warming malarkey was really beginning to dig in.

Probable climate change apart, both the major roads and the M5 motorway were largely bereft of traffic, as we wended our way towards genuine ‘zoider country’. An interesting outward journey, that: all around the Worcester bypass, much remained of the recent floods there, with untold numbers of seagulls cashing in too, where there were rich pickings in the avian food stakes to be had. But no crocuses there, as yet. Clearly, those vastly improved temperatures of late had yet to reach the open countryside.

With very little need remaining to race along all those bendy, twisty roads, we were able to proceed at leisure: even so, we completed the journey in but a little over an hour, very good going indeed for that trip. Even better, as we pulled onto the car park at the rear of the ground, we found we could more or less pick our spot. Important, that, as pole position allowed us to get a ‘flyer’ out after the final whistle. No floods from the nearby river either, at long last? That would really scupper my naughty plans for getting Hereford to redesignate their home terrace, the Meadow End “The Shallow End”! How could they do that to me?

Because the sciatic nerve in my left leg was still giving me big-time grief after yesterday’s standing/walking marathon at London Road Peterborough, when my other half went to pick up our tickets from Brade maman et fils, I decided to wimp out and remain in our vehicle instead. No real hardship, that: as I said earlier, the clime was almost spring-like, with a wonderfully-pleasant 50F showing on our in-car thermometer. And we’d also brought along a couple of newspapers to read while waiting: the local ‘Pink’, and a scandal-sheet, the latter being purely for the football match reports, of course!

Around 45 minutes later, my beloved returned, bearing gifts of those precious bits of paper. The reason he’d taken longer than I’d expected was because, unknown to me, the lad had to collect one each from two separate lots of Bull-people. Even then, we still had a good hour to the kick-off – but sod all that, the so-called ‘magic of the Cup’ was already exerting a massive influence upon my other half, so as the turnstiles were open already, in we went anyway.

What did disturb me, though, was more info about the almighty shambles that had marked Hereford’s ticket-sales for this one. The constant shifting of the selling time was quite enough to madden anyone. Furthermore, the first hand accounts of unlimited ticket sales (where was the instance that City followers would not be in the home end?) followed by a new directive of two each was guaranteed to raise the temperature a bit more. Only at Hereford are seated season tickets not guaranteed their seats – if they want to guarantee their regular pitch – which is after all integral to football watching – they just have to be early. Very early.

The moral of the story is that if The Bulls are serious about promotion, they’ll have to radically overhaul all their arrangements when it comes to big games, and who gets to watch them. There aren’t many current sides in the First with a big following – they’ll probably lose Swansea, promoted to the Championship, with Forest and/or Leeds possibly going the same way as well – but it’s a matter with clear potential for developing into a serious problem. Hereford are unquestionably a club who genuinely try to look after their followers, so why is it they can’t get this, of all things, right?

But back to the game. A bit worrying, when two stewards inside the ground not only recognised me, but also enquired whether or not I’d be ‘producing’ for this one! Blimey, fame at last, but not doing an awful lot for me on the old ‘street-cred’ front! Inside the stand, and plonked firmly upon our group of seats, was Nick’s mum Mavis, bless her little pension book. Mavis’s selflessness, entering the ground at 10.50 was the only way she could retain seats for herself and the surrounding season ticket holders.

Her little soldier, Nick, was out there, somewhere, flogging half-time draw tickets to home and away supporters alike like they were going out of fashion, not to mention acting as unofficial PR for the club: some call it ‘multi-tasking’, Nick calls it being very proactive indeed on behalf of a very good cause. In his own small way, he’s worth far more to the club than any amount of corporate sponsorship could ever be, cash input excepted, of course. No sign of Talking Bill, as yet, though, but having said all that, Bath isn’t exactly the ideal place to flee from on a Sabbath, when travel by train is either impossible or downright unreliable. When he finally turned up, I just knew I’d have to ask him precisely how he’d achieved what was clearly the impossible!

As for Nick’s mum, she’s now waiting to have knee-replacement surgery, poor sod. Chronic arthritis is the culprit, apparently: cortisone injections into the offending joint were tried (Ouch! Pretty painful: just ask any League-standard footballer who turned out during the sixties and seventies!) but they didn’t do the biz, so it’s going to be surgical-grade titanium-type metal to the rescue instead.

As we watched both sides warm up in the spring-like sunshine, the teams were read out on the PA system. Most Herefordians seemed happy with their line-up – they had to be because they don’t have any other fit players! – but there was a warm round of applause from the crowd when the name of Cardiff player Paul Parry was mentioned. How come? He gave The Bulls some pretty useful service while at Edgar Street, before moving to Cardiff. As for the remainder of that Cardiff side, it was exactly as it was when Albion played them the other week: why, even confirmed ‘oggie’ merchant Johnston was included in ex-Dingles manager Dave Jones’s starting line-up, other than portly Jimmy-Floyd was on the bench, replaced by their only other fit forward Thompson.

Realistically, if Cardiff gave it the same amount of welly as they did at the Hawthorns, the Second Division side would be well and truly blown out of the water. Assuming you can blow a heavy match ball out of a substantial stretch of oggin, of course. Good to see ex-Albionite Tucka Trewick putting his Hereford side through their pre-match paces, too. Of one thing I was certain: The Bulls really wanted to make an impression, put The Bluebirds to the sword, so it came as no real surprise to hear, yet again, their ‘anthem’. Written by a schoolteacher, back in the days of Ronnie Radford And Co, and it didn’t half show. Too simplistic and childlike for my tastes, but there’s about five or six thousand in that ground who would violently disagree, so who am I to criticise?

Then Talking Bill finally rolled up. He’d indulged in a pre-match pint of Butty Bach in a nearby hostelry, a place called The Barrel, apparently. Not that I had a clue where it was, mind. Superstition, pure and simple, he told me. He’d done similar before the first game of the season, so he simply dared not get out of the habit: tempting fate, he reckoned! Then I got the answer to the question that had been bugging me something rotten since entering the ground: how the hell had he managed the journey from Bath? Easy, he said, his parents, local people, had put him up for the night!

But Bill almost floored me with a question of his own: should The Bulls get through this one, and draw the mighty Albion, would I be sitting in my present location, among Herefordians (it was a given my other half would!), or would I opt for sitting with our own? An interesting dilemma, that: having considered that knotty one at some length, I finally concluded that the clarion-call of the Baggies would win out in the end!

While I’d been nattering and making notes for this piece, the Cardiff hordes had been pouring into their bit of the ground. Eventually, they started pressing vocals to metal, and pretty loudly, too. Impressive? Not really. Listening to that lot, my other half then had the temerity to suggest to Bill that the task would ultimately prove too much for the Bulls. Cue for instantaneous nuclear explosion, that, several megatons being my crude estimate! Suddenly, Bill launched into an almighty tirade which eventually culminated in the heartfelt – and loudly bawled -homily: “You’ve got to BELIEVE…..”

Out both sides came, then, to predictable applause on both sides of the divide. It was around that time also that Nick finally turned up: as I’ve mentioned before, he’s a pretty busy lad on matchdays! Two surprising observations: Three ‘Paul Parry’s’ on that pitch, one, the ‘genuine article’ wearing a team shirt with both name and number on the back, as per normal, but with two much smaller versions standing alongside. His kids, as it turned out. Ditto Graham Turner, whose granddaughter was also mascot for this caper.

Thanks to the man with the whistle being a bit of a stickler for minor detail, - Im Indoors: “We’ve not come to watch YOU, referee!” - the game was some three minutes late kicking off. But one thing was immediately made clear: whatever Cardiff expected to get from this game, the home side weren’t going to make their passage to the next round an easy one. Sure, around three minutes after the start, Hereford keeper Brown had to make a pretty classy stop for a Cardiff corner – I suspect the visitors were trying to knock the stuffing out of their opponents in similar fashion to the Hawthorns encounter, last week i.e. a quick goal – but that was the clearest chance they had during those opening minutes.

As for the Cardiff contingent, they quickly sensed what was going on, so the volume of their noise diminished considerably in proportion. Nervous they certainly were, and given the Bulls’ magnificent knock-out achievements made flesh on this very same ground, I couldn’t blame them in the slightest. Two minutes or so later, McLenahan almost struck oil for the Bulls, not once, but twice. Ten minutes gone, a Robinson foray down the flank got them deep into City territory: suddenly, as far as the visitors were concerned, it wasn’t at all amusing. In a clear attempt to get their favourites going again, the chant “BARMY ARMY! BARMY ARMY!” suddenly erupted from the away end. Well, they said it, not me!

As ever, the standard of football shown by the home side was really superb: ball to feet, pass and move, pass and move. Lovely stuff. Tony Mowbray would have revelled in it. And the visitors were getting a tad frustrated because of it; with just 15 minutes on the clock, ex-Bull Parry ended up in the book, following a little naughtiness directed towards Hereford’s McClenahan, who was proving a real thorn in their flesh. For one brief minute, I thought the ref would deem it worthy of a red card – it was a truly nasty example of the species, honest – but no such luck, sadly. The only thing lacking from the Hereford game-plan was the ability to whip in that essential ‘killer ball’. Even so, Hereford were actually managing to get behind the Cardiff rearguard, on occasions: of the two sides, had this been a boxing match and not one involving a spheroid, I would have said they were just about in front on points by that stage of the proceedings.

A worrying moment for Hereford with around 20 gone: after some Welsh grief inflicted on the sly, McClenahan had to get treatment for a leg problem of some sort. But the lad had youth on his side, not to mention a smidgen of common or garden fighting spirit: a little restorative work from their physio, and he was as right as ninepence once more. Not so the lino on our side of the field, whose performance was deemed distinctly underwhelming, in the eyes of the B Block crowd. Take Hereford’s answer to Madame De Farge, of ‘Tale Of Two Cities’ fame. No, she’d never knitted while Madame Guillotine wreaked her deadly work among the Parisian aristocracy, but she should have: what she yelled at that lino when a Bulls player was flagged offside yet again was nobody’s business. Wow – I’ve really missed those dulcet tones of hers!

Cardiff were now increasingly relying upon an offside trap to try and cramp the Herefordian style. Sure, in the main, it was working according to plan, but having seen many a side come unstuck through the patchy application of such tactics in the past, had I been the Cardiff gaffer, I really wouldn’t have wanted to rely upon it to the extent they did. But they did find time to force Hereford keeper Brown into ‘doing a Kiely’. Fortunately for his street cred, the lad eventually managed to dive upon the loose ball, then whack it out as far as the centre circle, where it was eagerly snapped up by a colleague.

With just 15 to go to the break, The Bulls then embarked upon one of their most impressive performances yet. The lad Robinson managed to get the ball into the box, then wellied it low and hard, forcing the Cardiff keeper to concede the corner, courtesy a pretty competent stop. A few seconds later, they were right ‘in the mixer’ again: this time, a classy through-ball saw Hereford’s Benjamin hit the side-netting. Not the same sort of ‘in yer face’ attacking we employed against them last week, when we were chasing the game, but not too far short of it either.

Talk about the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Welsh race. When asked via the PA system to sit down, not a few located at the rear of the Len Weston Stand decided to go into complete ‘standing mode’. Either that, or they were all suffering from a mass-attack of chronic piles! It was also around that time Talking Bill managed to do serious damage to all those dinky little bones that vibrate so nicely to facilitate hearing: blimey, one decibel-laden blast from him later, and my moderate deafness had suddenly become a pretty profound handicap! If there’s ever a vacancy arising for a foghorn anywhere in the world, then Bill will be the very first person I’ll suggest to do the job! Oh – it’s a nice thought, Bill, but someone getting upended whole still in Hereford’s own half does NOT constitute a ‘clear goalscoring opportunity’!

So far, so good, as far as the Bulls were concerned. With the minutes and seconds dripping away to the break, and with the home side enjoying the lion’s share of any possession, it really was looking good for them. Cardiff had tried most things in a concerted effort to negate these cider-slurping nuisances, but nothing really seemed to work: as far as I was concerned, as a neutral, I had the distinct feeling that the second half could really get spicy – and that’s the precise moment when disaster struck for the Bulls. Hereford 0, Cardiff 1. Totally against the run of play too, as far as I could tell, which only goes to show how bloody cruel the game can be, at times.

What happened? The blame, if you want to call it that, lay firmly with Hereford’s Beckwith. His headed clearance only did part of the job, the loose ball landing at the feet of Cardiff’s McNaughton, who then wellied it for all he was worth, from a good 25 yards out, I would say. A real ‘suck it and see’ jobbie, that, and normally, the Bulls would have had it covered – but not this time, it would seem. Right through a ruck of players – the opposition, their own, too – the blasted thing went, and right into the back of the bloody net. Brown, their keeper, must have been unsighted, or something: whatever the reason, he didn’t do much to stop the effort going in. I did happen to see an almighty swerve develop on the thing as it flew in: maybe that was the root of the problem. Almost four minutes of injury time elapsed, too. How awfully bloody cruel our national game can be, at times. The Bulls just didn’t deserve that.

And, in another quite different sense, so was the emergence of yet another voice I’d not heard at Edgar Street in yonks: their answer to the waspish outpourings of our very own old Baggie chum, the BIFOM (That’s The Bloke In Front Of Me, all you Herefordians reading this!) Emanating from just behind me, the criticism was as vitriolic as a carboy of concentrated sulphuric acid, and completely underserved, too. Those lads had busted a gut out there for the cause, only to succumb courtesy of a freakish effort from long-range deep in injury time. With ‘supporters’ like that, who the hell needs enemies?

The ref having blown the whistle on the first half in front of a crowd still stunned into complete silence, in an effort to lighten things, I asked Nick how many lottery tickets he’d managed to shift before the game. An amazing 276, all-told, even in the Cardiff end! Mind you, I couldn’t help but marvel mightily at the sheer size of Nick’s holdall: as he rummaged within its ample depths, trying to locate his replica shirt, I fully expected to see a three-piece suite, complete with matching sets of candelabra, go sailing merrily over our heads.

As per usual, Hereford were first to emerge from the tunnel, in order to embark upon the second sitting with all due haste, and not because Graham Turner or Tucka had decreed the lapse their own fault. That’s the way The Bulls normally do things: a punishment it is not. So, away they went again, and within the space of three minutes, the home side saw Oakes, Cardiff’s keeper, have to shift himself to keep out the Bulls’ first serious effort of the second half. To their eternal credit, the Bulls kept plugging away, and might well have breached the dykes before too long.

Hereford then made their first subbing of the afternoon, Easton taking the place of Taylor. But unmitigated disaster was to strike the poor Bulls yet again, and with around 20 minutes gone, too. This time, Cardiff managed to win a penalty, with new-boy Easton being implicated as the one adjudged to have fouled the increasingly irritating McNaughton in the box. Oh, whoops – as I’d said before, all this was pretty rough justice on the Bulls. Needless to say, Cardiff’s Thompson converted with ease.

That second strike really killed the game stone dead – or had it? From out of the blue, Hereford’s Robinson somehow managed to drill the ball straight into the bottom corner. Ah, so there was some semblance of justice in the world, after all! With that successful strike had come the sudden resurgence of hope, a precious commodity indeed, especially when mixing it with the likes of Dave Jones’s Ninian Park crew. Hereford huffed, and they puffed – but, for the life of them, simply couldn’t find sufficient wherewithal to grab that essential equaliser. And Cardiff, suddenly realising that the task wasn’t such a foregone conclusion as previously thought, turned up the wick, hoping to catch the home side on the break. Another good reason for their subbing, Hasselbaink coming on for the Bluebirds, and Thompson leaving the scene of the crime.

And just to further demonstrate how unlucky the Bulls could be, when the ball went out for what the home side thought was a slam-dunk Bulls ball, the ref decided otherwise, awarding Cardiff the throw instead! Yep, when your luck is out, the whole world and its little sister get to know as well! Another brave assault upon the Bluebird bastion by the Bulls, during the four minutes stoppage-time tacked on – and that was yer lot. Final score, Bulls 1, Cardiff 2 – but, if nothing else, the visitors would know they’d been in a game. In some ways, I seriously doubt whether they’d face so stern a test should they subsequently manage to go even further in the competition. But well done, The Bulls, for giving them such a bloody massive fright along the way!

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