Hereford's first game in the Conference

Hereford United's next campaign starts on Saturday with a home game against Rotherham. The squad Graham Turner has assembled looks promising, the finances at the club are steady and with developments at Edgar Street not too far away, this could be an exciting season for the Bulls.

But it's only ten years ago that Hereford United were looking forward to playing their first season in the GM Vauxhall Conference. Graham Turner was in charge but he hadn't managed at such a low level before.

That season, 1997/98, the Conference games started on August 16th. Hereford United's first game was at home to Welling United. It was just over three months since that famous game against Brighton which sent the Bulls out of League football after 25 years. T-shirts had been printed with the logo - Hereford United - on loan to the Vauxhall Conference - and a reasonable crowd of 3,138 watched in the hope that the Bulls could start the season with an emphatic victory.

In the starting eleven that day were Andy DeBont, Ian Rodgerson, Murray Fishlock, Trevor Matthewson, David Norton, Richard Walker, Chris Hargreaves, Tony Agnes, Neil Grayson, Ian Foster, and Gavin Mahon. Subs were Brian McGory, Jamie Pitman and Rob Warner.

This match report comes from Peter Povall's HUISA website.

Hereford United made a poor start to their Conference season in front of a bumper 3132 crowd.

Hereford were physically dominated throughout the first half of the match by Welling who were expected to be an easy first scalp on the run back to the league.

Wellings lead came in just the 4th minute when captain Paul Copley headed neatly into the back of the net from a Barry Lakin corner.

The assault by Welling escalated and they made their second in the 27th minute thanks to Andy DeBont failing to hold a cross, leaving Mark Cooper looking at an empty net which was just asking for the ball.

After the break Hereford pushed on the pace and managed to maintain more control of the game forcing some 10 corners, but the Welling defence was strong, and held until youngster Gavin Mahon crossed to Tony Agana who powered home a shot from the edge of the box.

Hereford continued to pressure the Welling defence but almost lost a further goal as Welling substitute Colin Simpson broke away leaving Andy DeBont to push his shot away.

Hopefully Hereford will now concentrate on the job at hand and present some useful results so that the present support is maintained, and the move back to the league is as swift as possible.

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