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Turner Bullish at Forum
Fans Forum 9th August 2004.
A report by Huw Williams.
A Fans Forum was held in the Legends bar last night. Graham Turner attended, and answered questions put by the 80 or so supporters present in his usual open and articulate manner. Keith Dodd, chairman of HUISA, chaired the meeting, and opened proceedings by asking for a round of applause for GT for last season's performance, which got a good response.
The first subject was, not surprisingly, new players. Having teased the audience a bit first, Turner gave details of the Jonathon Gould loan arrangement, which begins with a one month trial, with a view to making it a season long deal if both parties are happy. The capture of Gould has to be a good move, in my opinion - he has played at the highest level, and goalkeeper is the position where experience counts for so much. GT said that we would not be paying him anything like his current wages, but Gould was just happy to be playing. The same applied to striker Lee Mills, who was at Telford last year, and was playing Premiership football with Bradford City as recently as 2000. Mills will be training with the Bulls from today, having trained alone through the close season following Telford's collapse.
Youngster Mark Robinson has agreed a one month deal. GT feels he's shown enough in pre-season to be worth a longer run, and provide some left sided cover. GT made the point that a few new faces helped to liven the dressing room up, and that Graham Hyde in particular was a good influence on the squad, both on off the pitch. The only fitness issues were Ryan Green, whose back problem had now transferred to his hip, and Danny Carey-Bertram who was due to have a scan on a suspected cartilage problem in his knee. Everyone else should be fit for the new season.
Turner also confirmed that the spirit and work attitude in the squad was first class, and that there was no hangover from last season's disappointment. He's pretty clear what his starting eleven will be next Saturday, with the strikers being the only undecided area.
On to financial matters: an offer has been made, eight or so weeks ago, to the supervisor of the CVA which will clear it. This has been agreed by the Inland Revenue, the largest creditor, and by Mark Ellis. This means that it will go through, it is just a matter of when. A huge amount of credit and thanks is due to Graham Turner and Joan Fennesey for bringing us out of the CVA, and it provides a great psychological lift to the club.
GT also said that the Richardsons had accepted that there was little or no chance of repayment of the £1 million debt which was originally owed to Chelverton. Their only hope of getting any return was to be involved in any future development of the Edgar Street "grid". Turner didn't expect to see anything significant "in his lifetime" ! The council is adamant that the club will stay in it's present location, and GT said that the only thing that made any sense was to redevelop the ground on the existing footprint. Work was commencing on extending the changing rooms to enlarge them and bring them up to league standard. The two ends of the ground would soon require work - the Blackfriars end was being monitored, but would be open this season. The capacity remains unchanged.
GT declared himself "very happy" with John Trewick. He wasn't on a contract, and had taken a substantial wage cut to come here, to be working with senior players, and his friendship with Richard O'Kelly had been an influence on his coming to Hereford. He is a different style of coach, more intensive, perhaps not so much of a "father figure" to the young players as ROK was, but just as effective. The club also has the services of a new, very highly qualified, chartered physiotherapist, in Steven Heptinstall (apologies if I haven't got that quite right), 3 days a week. Jamie Pitman would also assist which would help his development as a physio.
The issue of the Crawley match being all ticket was a sore point with the audience. He explained that it was a police decision, and pointed out that Crawley's gates last season were no more than 1200, so if we take 500 down there it could be a problem. He said that it was an issue of numbers and safety, and nothing to do with the bad reputation created by a violent minority. He said it was likely to happen at a few games this season, and was always a police decision at short notice, which gave both the home club and us problems with ensuring ticket distribution and availability.
The question of using the HFA Cup games to work off suspensions was raised. GT's answer was a bit tongue in cheek, but he made it clear that the FA were wise to the dodge of hastily arranged county cup games, so we had to be careful. He also talked about the fixture congestion that often arose at the end of the season, and couldn't understand why we had so many blank mid-weeks early on when the pitches and weather were still good.
There was a lot of further chat , too much to report in detail here. GT agreed that Carlisle, the bookies favourites, would be a big threat this season. He also mentioned Exeter and Morecambe, and possibly Stevenage as potential rivals for the title. The last question from the floor was on the subject of how the club should be known - Graham said he'd be happy to be known as "Champions". We'll all second that