Chris Williams has released the following statement:
I am the Chairman of the Hereford United Supporters Trust. The following comments are made from a personal perspective and not are not the views of the elected Board of the Trust, although there may be some Board members who would agree with them.
In the current turmoil that is, or perhaps used to be Hereford United, I've had a few moments to reflect on the current situation and, looking forward to what we can expect of our football club in the future. I detail these reflections as follows ...
The present situation the club finds itself in is, undeniably dire.
We have a current position that can only be described as catastrophic; that is it is the result of the hand over of our club to new owners from the previous management regime of HUFC '39. How they could possibly find anyone worse than they themselves have been is beyond belief and yet this seems to be the case; if that was their intention then it is the singular most successful thing they have managed to do over the four years of running our club. The inquest on how we have arrived at this situation will continue and we may never get to the full truth but what we do know is that we have gone from bad to worse.
The probity of the previous Board is suspect as evidenced by the debts that keep on appearing - as the current owners (?) whoever they may be, are finding out. I have been been in a position where I have met the former Chairman and the current owner on a number of occasions. The former chairman had a arrogant streak believing that his strategy was right and sought to blame everyone but himself for the poor decision making and total lack of responsibility in addressing the problems at the club with due diligence. The new regime - on the other hand - appear to think that asset stripping the stadium through lease negotiations for development profit is the way forward . A previous shambles of a share issue and Club AGM may still come back to haunt the people involved who really didn't seem to grasp the situation or know what they were doing.
I've commented previously that the Board of the football club were offered help but were so arrogant as to ignore the view of the fans. The Trust even offered the same deal to the club that been accepted from the new owners - take the debts over and move the club forward with the fans behind it. I believe the previous management regime are solely to blame for the position that we find ourselves and our club in.
I have heard that the previous Chairman of our Club is poorly and I'm sorry for that and wish him good health soon but I can not forgive his attitude towards the management of the club and attitude towards the fans. He didn't seem to know or understand that when he bought the club, he only bought the right to be the custodian - not the rights to wreck it by poor management which is where we seem to have ended up.
With on-going threats of Court appearances through winding up orders, statements from players telling the back story, lack of funding against promises made, suspicion about previous activities in relation to club funding, lease negotiations taking assets out of the ownership into private holding companies, Police notices about licensing, using the club as a dormitory for trialists and debts that according to some sources could be approaching the £2m mark and a total lack of transparency is it any wonder that the fans are aggrieved.
No one will come forward to take on the club in its present state. The only way forward is to reconstitute the football club with a new community based, supporter led entity and a completely fresh start. On a personal level I think that it is more probable than possible that there will be no competitive football at Edgar Street this season. That is an unacceptable situation.
I call on the present regime to vacate Edgar Street and give us our club back