Tuesday, 02 March 2004.
There's a new joke doing the rounds in Conference circles at the moment.. What's the time in Dagenham? Nearly ten past Roberts!
It relates to Hereford United's 9-0 mauling of Dagenham and Redbridge on Friday night. Quite simply the most staggering non-League scoreline of the season so far.
The catalyst for the result was a red card for Daggers midfield man Danny Shipp for conceding a penalty on 15 minutes. Hereford led the Essex side by three goals at the break and rattled up six more second-half strikes past home keeper Tony Roberts.
Bulls boss Graham Turner was delighted with the result, but decided not to talk to the press after the game saying: "I'll let my team's performance do the talking." He has since taken time out to reflect on the massacre at Victoria Road.
Turner said: "The performance and result on Friday night was quite remarkable. Even though Dagenham and Redbridge had a player sent off early on, it is never easy to play against 10 men as most sides will tell you. So to go on and score nine goals was an incredible achievement.
"We looked very sharp and we passed the ball very well. The pleasing thing was that we used the extra man to good effect and created a lot of chances. Having got the nine goals, their keeper made three or four good saves to prevent even more going in."
Turner has been able to strengthen his squad at a vital stage of a serious assault on the Conference title. He has made two new signings in the past few days.
He said: "I've signed Scott Willis on loan from Lincoln City. He's a midfield player and just 22. He's played quite a few games for Lincoln - last season in particular when he contributed to their run to the play-offs. He played half an hour of the final in Cardiff.
"He's a lad who is full of ambition and has a great deal of ability and mobility. He wasn't featuring in Lincoln's plans at the moment, so he wanted to get fixed up somewhere with a future for him.
"I was looking to strengthen the midfield and what I didn't want to do was to take someone in right on the transfer deadline. There are a lot of games to play, so we might as well bring people in now and have adequate cover everywhere in the squad.
"In fact, I am also bringing in another defender this week - Tom Smith, who has been freed by Northampton. He's only a young boy and we have a chance to take him until the end of the season to see if we want to offer him a more permanent deal. He's a left sided defender, who can play either centre-back or left-back. I think he is a decent player and maybe he will have a future with us."
The only downside for Turner at the moment is the fact that his second-placed team are still eight points behind Conference leaders Chester City, who won 2-1 at Woking at the weekend. But the Hereford boss has not given up the ghost.
"Having taken the three points on Friday night, we were able to sit back and watch Chester on the television on Saturday at Woking. And I think Chester were slightly fortunate to take all three points. Even at the end Woking had a very simple tap-in chance for an equaliser and if that had gone in it would have been a good result for us.
"Chester didn't play as well as I would have expected. With the tough games they have got coming up, I think we have to maintain some hope that they can be beaten. If we keep doing our own thing and keep picking up points, then we will keep them under pressure.
"The race for the Conference championship is far from over. What we have to do is to put a run of wins together. We have got to take confidence from our Friday night win at Dagenham and make sure there is no complacency.
"Sometimes you see it with sides that they have a huge winning performance and then their next game is really poor. But the way my lads have looked in training since the 9-0 win has been very good. So we're hoping that we carry that into our forthcoming fixtures."
Former Darlington and Rochdale striker Robbie Painter has returned to UniBond Premier Division strugglers Bradford Park Avenue after a few months at Ossett Town. Painter, 33, made more than 400 Football League appearances in his career.
Ryman League Premier Division outfit Heybridge Swifts have parted company with manager Mark Hawkes, assistant Robbie Nihill and coach Liam Cutbush after a disappointing run of results.
Ex-Huddersfield Town stalwart Jon Dyson has switched from Ashton United to Farsley Celtic in the UniBond League. The 32-year-old defender made more than 200 appearances for Huddersfield in a 10-year career.
Pop star rapper Michael Harvey of So Solid Crew fame has moved from AFC Wimbledon to join the defensive ranks at Lewes in the Ryman League Division One South.
Tony Incenzo