Jo Clements is a long way away, but it doesn't hurt any less:
It was a very strange feeling, waking up on Saturday morning and not really having a football team to support. Having worked in California for the last few years, it’s a long time since I’ve been to Hereford’s first match of the season, but – without fail – I’m always glued to the game, whether it’s via Bulls Player, the BBC Sport web pages or text messages from my long-suffering parents.
This weekend, however, was different. The alarm wasn’t set for 7am (kick off time thanks to the UK-LA time difference), there were no texts from my Mum assuring me we would definitely finish top this season (ahem) and my first look at the score came on the Bulls News twitter feed well after the final whistle.
There have been a lot of feelings of anger – and quite rightly so - amongst Hereford fans. Anger at the new regime, the broken promises and the lack of money being paid to former players and staff. But, for me, the most prominent feeling on Saturday was sadness. Sadness for the fans who’ve had something they love so dearly taken away from them, sadness for last season’s squad whose heroic last-gasp efforts should have assured us Conference football again and – if I’m honest – sadness for the new batch of players who, up until now, would always have been able to count on our support.
I’ve got a handful of friends who I class as ‘proper’ football fans – loyal supporters who didn’t just pick a top tier side to follow, but people who chose their local team and have cheered them on through thick and thin. One friend, a Wimbledon fan, who probably knows better than anyone what we’re going through, made me laugh when they went behind on Saturday. “Wimbledon 0-1 down vs Shrewsbury and a summer of optimism is shattered in nine minutes,” he said.
I think that sentiment perfectly captures the feelings of many fans on the first day of the season. So much hope crushed so quickly. Common sense should tell us that avoiding the stress and – most of the time – disappointment of watching Hereford can only be a positive thing. But who are we trying to kid? We’d give anything to have that back – feet like ice blocks on cold winter Tuesday nights, long drives home after dull 0-0 draws and (for me) trying to arrange my trips to England around the Bulls' fixture list and be briefly reunited with Nick, Bill, Simon, Yvonne and the rest of the lunatics in Block B.
Reading the cavalier – and arguably offensive – attitudes towards us fans expressed by Tommy Agombar, Andy Lonsdale and Joel Nathan is shocking to me. “I’m not really bothered about whether they like me or not… If they don’t come we’ll still be ok,” is one of Tommy’s latest pearls of wisdom*. (*Note to Tommy – you didn’t buy a Premiership team where a few missing faces could pass unnoticed – at some point you will probably need our cash).
Their total lack of respect made me cast my mind back to 1998 and my 18th birthday. My Dad – unbeknown to me – had taken a card and a blank cassette tape to Edgar Street and left it with the staff, hoping the team would sign the card and – at a push - record birthday messages on the tape. When the morning of my 18th rolled around and nothing had arrived, he assumed they hadn’t been able to do it. That was until the doorbell rang. And there was Graham Turner standing at our front door, personally delivering the card and tape because they hadn’t been able to get it in the post in time. How times change.
So Tommy, if you’re reading this, I’m not expecting you to personally deliver a card to me on my 34th birthday (you would currently run the risk of getting a door slammed in your face). But it’s worth remembering that there IS NO CLUB without the fans. We ARE Hereford United, we will get our club back one way or another and if you cock it all up – as I fear you might – we will be there to pick up the pieces.