Go-Karting in Preparation for Swindon

In the second of our articles about Hereford United's FA Cup campaign ten seasons ago, the build-up for the Bulls before the Swindon tie included some go-karting as an aid to team-bonding.

FOOT-AND-MOUTH has prevented them from parading a bull, the club mascot, around the ground beforehand, a £1 million loan needs to be repaid within 18 months and the manager resigned recently. For the club that helped to invent FA Cup romance, the grim reality of life at the bottom has bitten.

While the Hereford United players went go-karting in preparation for Saturday’s second-round tie away to Swindon Town, Graham Turner sat writing cheques in his humble office. Two months after quitting as manager and assuming the dual title of chairman and director of football affairs, he is battling to solve the financial problems that are strangling the club.

Having taken a loan from developers keen to acquire the Edgar Street site, Hereford’s future has been clouded by the local council’s insistence that football must stay at the ground where Ronnie Radford scored that goal against Newcastle United almost 30 years ago.

“It’s a fact of life that clubs move,” Turner said. “Ask any Sunderland fan if he’d swap the Stadium of Light for Roker Park. You’ll get a few say, ‘I’ve stood here for 50 years and I am not budging,’ but most see the positive side. It’s logical but, unfortunately, we’ve hit an impasse with the council, who are the freeholders. I feel like a ball that’s been kicked around between the two parties.”

Even Turner’s metaphors betray his love of the game. Football is his lifeblood. It explains why, despite the bureaucracy and occasionally having to forgo his wages, he is still relishing the trip to Swindon. “It’s not about the money,” he said. “We’ve made £40,000 for getting to this stage and got £100,000 because the Wrexham game in the first round was on television. But this is about romance. Don’t let anyone tell you that’s gone. The FA Cup is special and always will be.”

The man charged with making it even more special is Phil Robinson. One of Turner’s players when he was manager of Wolverhampton Wanderers in the late 1980s, he has been put in charge of first-team affairs until the end of the season. “It was a big shock when Graham stepped aside,” Robinson, 34, said. “We’d had a run of below-par results and things were getting strained on and off the pitch, but I was surprised when he took me to one side and said what he was planning.”

It meant that Robinson, who joined the club in the summer of 2000, was thrust into the difficult world of player-management.

“It’s hard because you’re one of the lads on the pitch and then you try to keep a bit of distance off it,” he said. “It’s also hard to criticise if you’re making the same mistakes.”

Although he is still acclimatising to his new role, Robinson is used to such juggling acts, having spent five years studying for a physiotherapy degree. “I was living in Stafford and playing for Notts County,” he said. “So I’d drive to Nottingham first thing for training and then drive two hours to Salford University. Then I’d spend five hours studying before getting back in the car and spending another hour going home. It was gruelling.” It was worth it, though, and Robinson emerged with a first-class honours degree.

With Hereford struggling in the Nationwide Conference, the game at the County Ground brings much-needed respite. “If we all play above ourselves then we have a chance,” Robinson said. “The way teams cause upsets is by treating these games as special. Before each tie the players have gone karting. There are a few lunatics among them but it’s good for bonding. We’ll also be staying in a hotel the night before, which we wouldn’t normally do. You have to make it feel different.”

Robinson and Turner are hoping that routine will help their team to write another chapter in their rich FA Cup history. Both talk of “the romance of the Cup” but, against the backdrop of financial difficulties, they know that Saturday’s tie constitutes something more. It could be a lifeline.

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