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Chris Jones goes back in history:
The Beatles said it, and today, so can Hereford United supporters! It was 13th May 1990 that the Bulls won the Welsh Cup for the only time in our history! We had come close on occasions, not least when we lost to Wrexham and Kidderminster in the semi-finals of 1983-84, 1985-86 and 1988-89.
The 1989-90 Welsh Cup run started in the 3rd round at the end of October with a 9-0 home win against Connah's Quay Nomads. Goals from Richard Jones, George Oghani(2) and Mel Pejic put us 4-0 up at half-time. An own goal from Moxon and one from Chris Hemming put us 6-0 up before the hour, but the most eye-catching performance came from Paul Burton. The 16-year old YTS player came on for his first-team debut and scored a hat-trick between the 63rd and 86th minutes - the youngest hat-trick scorer in the club's history.
Our traditional semi-final against Kidderminster was brought forward to the 4th round and was played in the midweek leading up to Christmas. The man in red smiled on United that night as we won 3-1. Colin Robinson scored after 17 minutes but the Carpetshaggers equalised three minutes later through Forsyth. The Book lists the scorer of the second and third goals as Richard Jones in the stats bit, but also states that Mark(the blond one!) Jones scored the goals. If my memory serves me correctly, and that is by no means certain, then Mark was the man in question. I do have vague memories of a defensive howler that put us 2-1 up though.
Due to fixture congestion caused by the Cup run that ended with the heartbreaking 1-0 home defeat to Manchester United, the quarter-final was scheduled to be played on Sunday 11th February, the day after a 0-0 League draw at Wrexham. However, when we arrived at Bangor City's ground we found that the game had been called off due to torrential rain! There weren't many of us up there but we decamped to their supporters club before returning home. We were subjected to some suspicious looks which were only lifted when we played "Daytrip to Bangor" on the jukebox - an ice-breaker if ever there was one! We returned home after watching Nelson Mandela's release from prison!!!
The match was played a couple of weeks later, and resulted in a 1-1 draw when Ellis equalised early in the second half after Robinson had put us 1-0 up after 22 minutes. Gary Bowyer was given a debut in this match. Six days later the replay resulted in a 4-0 win for the Bulls. The goals were scored by Edwards(own goal), Ian Juryeff, Ian Benbow and Colin Robinson. This set up a semi-final against Cardiff, with the first leg at Ninian Park. This must have been one of United's best-ever away performances as we thrashed the Bluebirds 3-0, the highlight being a piledriver from Chris Hemming. The others were scored by Mark Jones and Ian Juryeff.
The second leg was played two days later, and given our home record against them, was far from a foregone conclusion. Future Bull Chris Pike put City 1-0 up in the first half, before another one(Gareth Abraham) made it 2-0 early in the second half. The Welsh Cup-run goal machine, Colin Robinson gave us breathing space by pulling one back after 84 minutes, but Cohen Griffith ensured palpitations with a third goal after 86 minutes. However, we held onto the win to set up an appearance in the Final against Wrexham.
Certain parts of the day are still vivid all these years later. Our travlleing support to the Arms Park that day was 2700, which was about the same as our average home League attendance that season! It certainly gave us the majority of the crowd of 4812!! Wrexham must have had about 800 and there looked to be around 600 neutrals. We had brought out a special issue of "Talking Bull" to commemorate our appearance in the Final and these soon sold out. Robinson scored his fourth goal of the Welsh Cup run in the first half, but (Gary?) Worthington equalised after 55 minutes. It seemed as thought the match was heading for extra-time but local lad Ian Benbow scored the winning goal after 84 minutes. To date this is still our last win in a competition - unless you count the Play-off win!!
Happy days indeed!!!
