The Unofficial Archiver went to today's game, his first under the new regime:
Firstly a confession, i may dedicate more of my spare time researching an Hereford United archive than is healthy (might as well get in a shameless plug for my website whilst i am here, so -http://www.herefordunitedarchives.com/archives/Home.html – and my twitter feed – @HUFCArchiver, if you want to indulge in the great, and sometimes not so great HUFC past that we are lucky to be a part of) but i i am not a Herefordian, I’m an exile who grew up in Worcester, and has spent the last decade living in Northamptonshire – if you take out footballing reasons, i have probably only visited the county 10 times in my nearly 29 years on this earth. In fact if it wasn't for my father going to Hereford Cathedral School in the early 70’s, my footballing experience could have been very different. My Hereford United 1st was the 29th December 1991 (goals from Mel Pejic - playing his last game - and Peter Heritage securing a 2-2 draw vs Barnet) and other the years i have been there through most of highs, and far, far too many of the lows to be able to say that the club means as much to me as it would every other HUFC fan.
I like most of my fellow exiles, get my impressions of what is happening to our football club at the moment from the internet (Bulls News and twitter are my addictions), so i wasn’t sure exactly what to expect today, i wasn’t even sure if i would see any of the familiar faces that we all see up and down the country week in, week out – the people that you know nothing about, apart from the fact that they support Hereford United – i saw some of them, but others were missing – they will have had their reasons, and these reasons are perfectly valid. 3 years ago today most of these fans were at Villa Park, in a crowd of over 21,000, which is a scary truth in how far we have been dragged by our leaders.
My main reason for attending was to see if my heart still had any affection for the club, or had recent months broken it beyond repair – the honest answer is yes, ON THE PITCH it still feels like the club that i have followed for 20+ years. I saw a group of young lads who wanted to play football, who wanted to do things correctly and get a win for the club – if it wasn't for a questionable offside decision, a win was what they would have achieved. Based on the 90 minutes that i witnessed today they played in the manner that i would hope i would do if i was lucky to ever get a game (sadly was never asked to trial after my performance in the Fans vs Legends game of 2012) – sure there was errors, 1 or 2 maybe a little above their natural footballing level, but the effort and commitment, that we as fans deserve, was there – they wanted to be playing for the shirt.
I will single out a few that caught the eye - Javia Roberts is a quick and tricky winger that will cause problems to most at this level, he seemed reluctant to take his man on at times but there is certainly something to work with. The front two - Sergie Mor Diop (no.9 i think), and Abon Bakar Kone (no.10, again i think) – looked like they knew what they were doing, but they did seem reluctant to shoot – unlike Salvador Ramirez who’s goal was from a better standard than the Southern League might expect, we’ve been crying out for years for a midfielder who likes taking a shot from outside of the box. The football was decent – certainly a marked improvement on most of last season, the Peter Beadle part excluded.
There was no real atmosphere to speak of, but i think that was to be expected – after the last few months we’ve all suffered more than our usual share of heartache – after all we are Hereford United fans, it is never supposed to be that enjoyable! I estimated 40/50 fans made the trip – it could well be more, i certainly cant remember seeing many who were supporting the home team in the 184 that is being quoted as attending a ground that was the definition of basic.
I will catch the team at some other venues throughout the season, most likely to be at Histon in a couple of weeks (IF the club still exists by this point) – but i wont set foot inside Edgar Street until the trust or “people with the best interests of the people of Herefordshire” run the club, a stance that is shared by a good number of my fellow fans but there are fans that have decided to go to home games – that is there stance, and i respect that stance – they are fully entitled to do what they think is best. I would encourage any fan to attend the away games - The players deserve our support, the owners don’t.