Andy Lonsdale has admitted to The Guardian's David Conn that he knows who sent the voicemails published earlier in the week.
Despite a club statement labelling the voicemails as 'fake', Lonsdale has now admitted they are genuine but remains adamant that the voice is not that of Tommy Agombar, with the paper reporting:
'Lonsdale accepted the voicemails were from an associate of theirs who, he said, is no longer involved, but emphatically insisted it was not Agombar. The messages were “disgraceful,” Lonsdale accepted'
Martin Foyle has also confirmed to the paper that he has rejoined the winding-up petition after the settlement he agreed with Hereford United was not met.
The full article is at: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/29/hereford-united-new-owners-mistrusting-supporters?CMP=twt_gu
Hereford United, the bullish football club forever loved for their gleeful 1972 FA Cup giant-killing of Newcastle
United, face a winding up petition on Monday that could bring 90 years
of longevity to a sad collapse. In financial difficulties for two years before relegation from the Conference to the Southern League this summer
for a refusal to pay a £350,000 bond, it will the latest hearing for a
petition first issued in April for money owed to the former manager
Martin Foyle.
Under new owners, from east London, with patchy records who are bitterly opposed and boycotted by much of the fanbase, the club has been told that creditors’ patience is paper thin, and Her Majesty’s Revenue is pushing for a winding up. Foyle, with whom a settlement was previously reached, has joined this petition again after the club defaulted on his payments. He told the Observer that he does not blame the owners, who have put money in to pay some of the bills and pull together a team, but reserves his ire for the previous regime led by the locally-born chairman David Keyte, under whom the club failed to pay the manager, players and many others, amassing debts of £1.2m. “Whatever the fans’ views,” Foyle said, “my issues aren’t with the new people.”
That is not a perspective shared by many around Edgar Street, the club’s home since it was founded by a merger in 1924, where matches are now being shunned by many fans and the mood is disconsolate, rancorous and, increasingly, toxic.
At the end of May, Keyte ceded ownership of the club for £2 to Tommy Agombar, described as an entrepreneur and developer, from east London. Supporters, who have forensically researched their new owners in ways that were beyond fans’ groups in the pre-internet age, swiftly discovered Agombar had a past conviction for lorry theft and had served time in prison. That made him not “fit and proper” to own or be a director of a football club under the Football Association rules, and according to a speech in parliament by the local Conservative MP, Jesse Norman, Agombar’s son, Tommy jr, who was banned by the Essex FA, and Philip Gambrill, who had been subject to personal insolvency proceedings, were similarly prohibited from being directors.
Ownership passed to Alpha Finance, described as dealers in “distressed debt”. Stepping in as a director, and currently the most public face of the club, came Andrew Lonsdale, a friend and advisor of Agombar’s. In a long interview with the Observer, Lonsdale acknowledged that the information the fans found out about him is also correct. Although he insists he and his partners have taken over Hereford because of the club’s heritage and potential and that they believe they can revive it, his record has only fed fans’ bleakest nightmares.
The 50-year-old has worked in the haulage and construction industry and, for 17 years, ran his local non-league club, Feltham FC. Many of his companies have been dissolved over time; he went bankrupt in 2007 and was disqualified from being a company director from October 2006 for six years. The grim fate of the Feltham Arena, the former home of Feltham FC, is the one that most chills fans of Hereford because there is a property development opportunity at each end of Edgar Street.
Feltham moved out, with the intention to build a new stadium on the site, and Lonsdale, whose company was to carry out works, was given permission to import 15,692m³ of soil on to the ground.
After years in which a procession of lorries dumped rubble to the bitter complaints of neighbours, the London borough of Hounslow mounted an investigation. Its task force found that 73,485m³ of soil and rubble had been dumped, five times more than permitted. The council report said Lonsdale had “a clear conflict of interest” between his position at the club and his involvement in the company paid to do the work. They did not rule out that Lonsdale had made significant money from his company being paid by other construction firms to dump their excavated waste, although Lonsdale maintains that the delays and other costs meant he lost money on the saga. No new stadium was built, and the site stood as a derelict dumping ground for years, with the club merged with Bedfont.
In the course of its investigations, Hounslow found that Lonsdale had, in 2008, been convicted of illegally dumping 600 lorry loads of waste on green belt land within South Bucks district council. Lonsdale says the FA were made aware of that conviction but has cleared him to be a director of Hereford under its owners and directors test, something the FA confirmed, indicating the conviction is considered spent under its rules.
For the campaigning Save Edgar Street website, and the Hereford United Supporters Trust, this record does not inspire confidence in Lonsdale, Agombar and their associates from whom Lonsdale said they are seeking to raise the necessary investment in time for Monday and continue in charge of the club.
The volume of rancour increased this week with the public airing of threatening and abusive voicemails left on the telephone of a supporter who had texted a rude message. Lonsdale accepted the voicemails were from an associate of theirs who, he said, is no longer involved, but emphatically insisted it was not Agombar. The messages were “disgraceful,” Lonsdale accepted, saying he did not condone them, but argued that he, Agombar and their partners are being subjected to an excessive level of abuse and suspicion on some messageboards.
Lonsdale says they have invested a significant sum and are seeking to raise more to fend off the petition because they believe they can restore Hereford to the Football League, partly by identifying promising players who can be sold on. “We are being painted as the bad guys,” he said, “but we took the club over for £2, immediately faced a winding up petition, and have put a small fortune into the club to keep it going.
“If we had raped and pillaged the club, sold the assets, I would hold my hands up, but we have done the opposite; we’ve put money in, borrowed money, and taken on a huge task.”
Martin Watson, the vice-chair of HUST and a lifelong fan who has put money into the club in the past, said there is too little trust in the owners and if the club goes bust, the trust hopes to be involved in resurrecting it, still playing at Edgar Street. “Many supporters believe the club died at the end of last season. They don’t recognise this season’s Hereford United as the one they followed,” he said.
All of which is a world of heartbreak from Ronnie Radford’s 35-yard screamer against Newcastle in 1972, and the pitch invasion by hordes of ecstatic boys in parkas that, for 42 years, has always brought a smile to the faces of football lovers.
Under new owners, from east London, with patchy records who are bitterly opposed and boycotted by much of the fanbase, the club has been told that creditors’ patience is paper thin, and Her Majesty’s Revenue is pushing for a winding up. Foyle, with whom a settlement was previously reached, has joined this petition again after the club defaulted on his payments. He told the Observer that he does not blame the owners, who have put money in to pay some of the bills and pull together a team, but reserves his ire for the previous regime led by the locally-born chairman David Keyte, under whom the club failed to pay the manager, players and many others, amassing debts of £1.2m. “Whatever the fans’ views,” Foyle said, “my issues aren’t with the new people.”
That is not a perspective shared by many around Edgar Street, the club’s home since it was founded by a merger in 1924, where matches are now being shunned by many fans and the mood is disconsolate, rancorous and, increasingly, toxic.
At the end of May, Keyte ceded ownership of the club for £2 to Tommy Agombar, described as an entrepreneur and developer, from east London. Supporters, who have forensically researched their new owners in ways that were beyond fans’ groups in the pre-internet age, swiftly discovered Agombar had a past conviction for lorry theft and had served time in prison. That made him not “fit and proper” to own or be a director of a football club under the Football Association rules, and according to a speech in parliament by the local Conservative MP, Jesse Norman, Agombar’s son, Tommy jr, who was banned by the Essex FA, and Philip Gambrill, who had been subject to personal insolvency proceedings, were similarly prohibited from being directors.
Ownership passed to Alpha Finance, described as dealers in “distressed debt”. Stepping in as a director, and currently the most public face of the club, came Andrew Lonsdale, a friend and advisor of Agombar’s. In a long interview with the Observer, Lonsdale acknowledged that the information the fans found out about him is also correct. Although he insists he and his partners have taken over Hereford because of the club’s heritage and potential and that they believe they can revive it, his record has only fed fans’ bleakest nightmares.
The 50-year-old has worked in the haulage and construction industry and, for 17 years, ran his local non-league club, Feltham FC. Many of his companies have been dissolved over time; he went bankrupt in 2007 and was disqualified from being a company director from October 2006 for six years. The grim fate of the Feltham Arena, the former home of Feltham FC, is the one that most chills fans of Hereford because there is a property development opportunity at each end of Edgar Street.
Feltham moved out, with the intention to build a new stadium on the site, and Lonsdale, whose company was to carry out works, was given permission to import 15,692m³ of soil on to the ground.
After years in which a procession of lorries dumped rubble to the bitter complaints of neighbours, the London borough of Hounslow mounted an investigation. Its task force found that 73,485m³ of soil and rubble had been dumped, five times more than permitted. The council report said Lonsdale had “a clear conflict of interest” between his position at the club and his involvement in the company paid to do the work. They did not rule out that Lonsdale had made significant money from his company being paid by other construction firms to dump their excavated waste, although Lonsdale maintains that the delays and other costs meant he lost money on the saga. No new stadium was built, and the site stood as a derelict dumping ground for years, with the club merged with Bedfont.
In the course of its investigations, Hounslow found that Lonsdale had, in 2008, been convicted of illegally dumping 600 lorry loads of waste on green belt land within South Bucks district council. Lonsdale says the FA were made aware of that conviction but has cleared him to be a director of Hereford under its owners and directors test, something the FA confirmed, indicating the conviction is considered spent under its rules.
For the campaigning Save Edgar Street website, and the Hereford United Supporters Trust, this record does not inspire confidence in Lonsdale, Agombar and their associates from whom Lonsdale said they are seeking to raise the necessary investment in time for Monday and continue in charge of the club.
The volume of rancour increased this week with the public airing of threatening and abusive voicemails left on the telephone of a supporter who had texted a rude message. Lonsdale accepted the voicemails were from an associate of theirs who, he said, is no longer involved, but emphatically insisted it was not Agombar. The messages were “disgraceful,” Lonsdale accepted, saying he did not condone them, but argued that he, Agombar and their partners are being subjected to an excessive level of abuse and suspicion on some messageboards.
Lonsdale says they have invested a significant sum and are seeking to raise more to fend off the petition because they believe they can restore Hereford to the Football League, partly by identifying promising players who can be sold on. “We are being painted as the bad guys,” he said, “but we took the club over for £2, immediately faced a winding up petition, and have put a small fortune into the club to keep it going.
“If we had raped and pillaged the club, sold the assets, I would hold my hands up, but we have done the opposite; we’ve put money in, borrowed money, and taken on a huge task.”
Martin Watson, the vice-chair of HUST and a lifelong fan who has put money into the club in the past, said there is too little trust in the owners and if the club goes bust, the trust hopes to be involved in resurrecting it, still playing at Edgar Street. “Many supporters believe the club died at the end of last season. They don’t recognise this season’s Hereford United as the one they followed,” he said.
All of which is a world of heartbreak from Ronnie Radford’s 35-yard screamer against Newcastle in 1972, and the pitch invasion by hordes of ecstatic boys in parkas that, for 42 years, has always brought a smile to the faces of football lovers.