Hereford United, tomorrow's final visitors to Victoria Road in what the Americans call the 'regular season', did what most people would do in times of stress two months ago - they turned to the person they knew best, to get them out of trouble.

For the Bulls that man was undoubtedly chairman, principal shareholder and manager of the club for most of the last 14 seasons - Graham Turner.

For Turner, in his role as chairman, had the unpalatable task of 'sacking' his former number two John Trewick, the former West Bromwich and Newcastle midfielder, whom he had put in charge of team affairs himself, 10 months earlier.

Taking the reins again in purely ' a caretaker capacity', the former Aston Villa and Wolves boss has steered the Bulls to midtable security with promotion-like form of six wins from eight, making Daggers' final home game task seem much more difficult that it might have appeared two months ago.

The man who plied his trade as a journeyman central defender, giving yeoman service to Shrewsbury for whom he played 355 times, after serving the sadly now-defunct Chester City for over 200 games previously, took over as Hereford's manager 14 seasons ago.

He had been manager at Villa Park for two seasons, after serving his apprenticeship as Shrewsbury's successful manager and after leaving Villa, took Wolves to two promotions and a Football League trophy win, before settling at Hereford.

He became club chairman in 1998, but has recently announced that he will step down and sell his major share-holding in the club at the end of the current campaign, citing that Hereford 'need new direction' to take the club forward. He also insists that he won't be the club's manager next season.

Recent results have seen the Bulls win four of the six games in April, beating lowly duo Barnet and Darlington by the odd goal, overcoming Accrington away 2-1 and capping a fine month with last weekend's 2-1 home victory over promoted Rochdale.

The losses were a 1-0 home defeat by desperate Grimsby and a 2-1 reverse away at now promoted Bournemouth.

Turner has cleared the decks for next season by allowing a trio of young loan players to return to their parent clubs for the final couple of games. Birmingham City youngsters Daniel Preston and John Jervis have gone back to St Andrew's, while Lewis Young, younger brother of Aston Villa and England's Ashley, has returned to Watford. A fourth loanee, Paul Downing has been recalled by West Brom.

Dangerman for the Bulls could be midfielder Gavin McCallum, who is playing for a new deal at Edgar Street next season and has an impressive eight goals in 18 games.

Season-long loanee Craig King, from Leicester, scored against Rochdale and is leading the attack alongside mid-season French signing Mathieu Manset.

Daggers boss John Still knows it's a must-win game for his side if Daggers are to have any chance of a play-off spot going into next weekend's final game, away at rock-bottom and already long relegated Darlington.

His concerns over Scott Doe, who has been suffering headaches lately and had a neurological scan earlier in the week, having had to come off the field at Morecambe after half-an-hour last weekend, now seem ended, while Paul Benson sustained a broken nose in a clash at Christie Park, but will play the final two games with the injury protected by a specially fitted mask.

Bedfordshire referee Graham Horwood takes charge of a game involving the Daggers for the first time this season.

Likely teams:- Dagenham & R: Roberts, Ogogo, Doe, Arber, McCrory; Green, Vincelot, Gain, Nurse; Benson, Scott.

Hereford: Bartlett; Green, Jones (D), Rose, Valentine; McCallum, Lunt, McQuilkin, Pugh; Manset, King.

Referee: Graham Horwood