Brian Viner: A knight to challenge Sir Alex in footballing derring-do

How, I wonder, might we estimate the total number of column inches devoted in the national press this week to the exploits of Manchester United and Chelsea in reaching the first notionally all-English European Cup final, and to the achievements of their respective managers, Sir Alex Ferguson and Avram Grant (a total which I confess to boosting myself elsewhere in today's paper)?

Obviously, a simple tape measure wouldn't be up to the job. How about a helicopter, from which to survey the vast swathes of Scandinavia now bereft of trees?

Yet the transcendent footballing achievement of the week, if not the season, has been overlooked amid all the Champions League ballyhoo. It is that of my local team Hereford United, and more specifically of the manager Graham Turner, in achieving promotion for the second time in three seasons, this time into League One. Turner, I should add, is not only the manager of Hereford, he is also chairman, director of football and majority shareholder, a man with football etched into the creases of his 60-year-old brow.

The Hereford Times has invited its readers to suggest how his contribution to the club should be recognised, and with this being such a historic part of England I suggest a historic honour. Another local hero, Sir Rowland Lenthall, was given "a licence to crenellate" by King Henry VI, following his stirring actions at Agincourt. I think Hereford's latest white knight should, at the very least, be given a licence to crenellate.

He arrived at the club in 1995 not from Agincourt, Camelot or wherever it is that white knights on chargers set off from, but from Wolverhampton, where he had won successive promotions. Hereford were in a parlous financial state, and in 1997 Turner could not stop the proud old club from slipping out of the Football League, whereupon he did the honourable thing and offered his resignation. But Peter Hill, the then chairman, refused to accept it.

And when Hill himself decided to get out a couple of years later, and nobody wanted to buy shares in what was less a copper-bottomed investment than an investment with a very unreliable bottom indeed, Turner and the company secretary, Joan Fennessy, mustered the funds themselves. For the last five years, after teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, Hereford United have traded in the black.

In his 13 years at the club, Turner's expenditure on players has totalled less than £50,000. Now there's a statistic worth shouting from the rooftops in London and Manchester. For less than half Michael Ballack's weekly wage, Turner has steered his team back into the Football League, and now into its third tier. Moreover, he had only 12 registered players at the start of pre-season training last summer, bolstering his squad with some astute loan deals, notably Theo Robinson from Watford, Sherjill MacDonald from West Brom, and Gary Hooper from Southend.

And not only did his hastily assembled team win promotion, they also enjoyed an FA Cup run which had old-timers talking wistfully about 1972, and the most famous Hereford United Cup win of all. Two League One sides, Tranmere Rovers and Leeds United, were overcome on the way to the fourth round, the latter at Elland Road. And when Hereford were knocked out, it was by the eventual finalists, Cardiff City. By any measure, except the measure of column inches, it has been a marvellous season.

For this afternoon's match at home to Grimsby, ticket prices have been slashed in the hope that a capacity crowd will turn up to Edgar Street to celebrate promotion. Tomorrow, the team will parade around the city in an open-top bus. Yet while the players and the fans jump up and down, the chairman, director of football, manager and majority shareholder will be holding a summit meeting in Turner's head. League One status will yield about £200,000 more from the Football League, but he will need to shell out considerably more in wages. And he can't rely on increased gate money. This season, attendances have been down on 2005-06, when the club were still in the Conference. Turner ascribes it to economic hardship beginning to bite in a predominantly agricultural area, and has accordingly decided to cut next season's ticket prices for families and children.

I talked to him a couple of days ago and we discussed the headaches that come with promotion, as well as the thrill. He also said – a line to chill the heart of any Bulls fan – that he thinks he has another managerial job in him, with a bigger club, before his time in football is done.

"I'd be disappointed in my players if they weren't ambitious, and if I wasn't ambitious I'd be disappointed in myself," he said.

The implication, though he didn't spell it out, was that League One might just about be the summit for Hereford United. But his achievement in scaling it is at least the equal of United and Chelsea getting to Moscow. Congratulations, Graham, and crenellations!

b.viner@independent.co.uk