“I JUST thought, ‘I’ve got to hit this’.”

With that thought and subsequent swing of the right boot, Ronnie Radford secured his place in football folklore with one of the most famous goals in FA Cup history.

The date was February 5, 1972. The venue Hereford’s Edgar Street.

On a mud-caked pitch and in front of a sell-out 14,000 crowd, with hundreds more watching from trees and standing on floodlight pylons, Hereford, of the Southern League, beat top-flight heavyweights Newcastle United 2-1 in a third-round replay.

Substitute Ricky George grabbed the extra-time winner by firing low past Northern Ireland goalkeeper Willie McFaul, but it was Radford who stole the headlines with his 35-yard thunderbolt.

Malcolm Macdonald, the powerful striker who went on to play for Arsenal and England, had headed Newcastle in front after 82 minutes.

But three minutes later Radford won a tackle in midfield, turned, and played a ball in to the path of team-mate Brian Owen.

“He gave it back and it sat up just right,” Radford recalled.

“I didn’t think about the distance, I just thought, ‘I’ve got to hit this’.

“It could have gone in the car park. But it didn’t. Bang, it went in straight as a die.”

The goal sparked a pitch invasion and was memorably described by a young John Motson, then only 26 and on trial as a commentator at the BBC.

Match of the Day upgraded the highlights from a short segment to top billing that night and Motson, who went on to become one of football’s finest commentators, was forever grateful to the cup tie for “putting me on the map”.

Nearly three decades later the Football Association introduced the ‘FA Ronnie Radford Award’, recognising the most impressive giant-killing act in the FA Cup that season.

Radford was born in South Elmsall, a Yorkshire pit town between Doncaster and Wakefield, in July 1943.

He began his career at Sheffield Wednesday and was a Leeds contemporary of Gary Sprake, Terry Cooper and Norman Hunter, but he did not make a first-team appearance for either club.

His semi-professional days began at Cheltenham in 1963 and he also played for Rugby and Newport before the Leeds, Juventus and Wales great John Charles signed him for Hereford in 1971.

After the Newcastle win, Hereford lost to West Ham in a fourth-round replay but were elected to the Football League.

Radford stayed at Hereford until 1974 and ended his career at Worcester, where he was player-manager, Bath and Forest Green.

After his playing career he returned to his native Yorkshire and continued to work as a carpenter and joiner.

“Some of the guys on the site didn’t even know I was playing until they saw me on Match of the Day,” Radford said after his FA Cup goal.

“I just wanted to be known as Ronnie Radford, the joiner.

“But that day changed the lives of everyone who was part of it. We became part of something that will be remembered in football forever.”

Radford, who has died at the age of 79, was married to Annie and had two sons, Gary and David.