With the plans for a supporters trust at Hereford United currently taking shape, BN looks back to June 2002 when there was an attempt to set up a similar trust.
HUISA have taken the decision to launch a Supporters Trust, and association chairman Kevin Wargen spoke to BBC Hereford & Worcester before the meeting on Thursday night, although the interview was broadcast yesterday.
A vote was held to determine how the membership felt to the Trust, and the response was good. "I've been very pleased with the response, we had from the members both by the use of the P.O. Box, telephone and e-mails, etc," he said. "We managed to get as many HUISA members as we possibly could so I am very pleased with the response.
"The move tonight will be to generally accept a Supporters Trust and then look at setting up a working party with a launch date of the middle of July, hopefully. The launch will be all over Herefordshire and everybody will know what’s going on.
"The ultimate aim is to purchase some shares and to assist the club in the day-to-day running of the club and hopefully with some financial clout. Graham Turner & Joan Fennessy are currently running the club and so we will be helping them in every way. HUISA was set up to assist the club and hopefully the supporter’s trust will go along the same lines.
"We have been very pleased (with the amount of money pledged) I understand it was somewhere around £30,000 which I think is magnificent. This has just come off supporters, hopefully the Supporters Trust can reach out into the communities and attract the business community and hopefully we can get some money that we can do some real stuff with the club and assist them with securing some better players for the club.
"We also gain the support of Supporters Direct which is the most important issue of all the legal technicalities that they bring with it, setting up the trust and you do have some good background with supporters direct. Supporters Direct are on the end of the phone if you have a query. The spokesman who was coming down to the meeting was ill but I have got a phone number for him so he could be contacted if needed. He has assured me that we will always have at the end of the telephone any help we need."
At the meeting (June 6th 2002) it was agreed by a HUISA postal ballot that a trust should
be formed, and it was also agreed that a working party would be set up to
organise the launch and constitution of the association. Eleven people
were named and the party would disband on the launch date, when a new
committee and working party would be set up at a meeting. The launch
should be within about six weeks.
"It's the first time we've had a vote and one negative view hasn't been
expressed so I'm quite pleased about that," said Wargent.
"It was 100%."