PA announcer Matt Healey has released this extract detailing his time at the club this season.
Friends turning on each other, supporters boycotting the team they support, others staying till the bitter end, I want to shed some light on what occurred during the 2014-2015 season
I had contact on a Wednesday in early July. One of the stewards had been asked by Joel Nathan to message me on Facebook with his number to see if I would work the Help for Heroes game,. I texted Joel that night and called him the next day and it was arranged I would go down on the Saturday to check everything all worked in the PA box. Plus I had left some CD’s in there from the Alfreton game and wanted to get them back. After a quick test it was all working fine and I was able to take my CD’s home.
The Help for Heroes game never happened due to safety issues, and we never played a home pre season friendly, I was still unsure what to do and I must admit I rode the fence as best I could as didn’t want to decide either way and was busy with work and going on holiday so waited to see what would happen.
I really thought the FA or Southern League would have expelled the club in the summer. Anyhow I got back from holiday three days before the season started and was starting to receive social networking messages asking what my stance was. I was still undecided but two days before the "big kick off" I decided I just couldn't turn my back on the club. I didn't have any other football team to follow. Plus im not a rugby or cricket fan so had no other sporting options & against the advice of a lot people I went back to Edgar Street.
The first game was home to St Neots on August 9. I got to the ground at midday and noticed a fire drill taking place with the stewards. I introduced myself to Andy Lonsdale who seemed very jolly, but did ask me to play the infamous “im a football man song” over the PA which I didn’t have (and if I did wouldn’t have played it I must add). Tommy Agombar then emerged later in the day, he parked his car in the blackfriars end and I had a brief chat with the man, he was approachable and confident. Later in the season after a 2-1 win over Biggleswade he was absolutely beaming after his son Harry had debuted and had a decent game, Tommy definitely enjoyed his football.
Anyhow due to the lack of staff we didn’t get teamsheets till 3.20pm (one hour later than the conference), previously we had staff who arranged that, but a lot of people were doing new roles or multiple roles and it was a total mess, anyhow the game had a pre-season feel to it, we looked quite disjointed but with a new team that had hardly had any competitive action was to be expected. St Neots were an experienced side and deserved the 2-0 win.
Banbury at home two weeks later was the last time I saw John Edwards and Elke Thuerlings, they had been to all the home games previously and seemed very passionate about the club. In fact I flagged up that Sam Akinde had been sent off the previous game against Dorchester, and saw his name on the teamsheet. Not wanting the club to get a points deduction for an ineligible player as had happened four seasons before, Elke and myself checked the Southern League handbook before discovering in that league there is a two week period of grace. I never saw the pair of them again.
After more depatures at the club mid September I found myself doing more work on matchday. I need to point out I wasn’t asked to do anymore work, but could see jobs weren’t being done so got myself stuck in to keep things ticking over, mainly to help the media guys, so I was now sorting and typing out the teamsheets and doing the matchday admin for the southern league, as well as PA, scoreboard and radio reports.
The team didn’t seem to click until early October. The 5-2 home defeat against Burnham on our 90th birthday on August 30 was a total debacle, but on the pitch it gradually improved. Jon Taylor didn’t have much of a pre-season campaign, so the first 8-10 games there was massive squad rotation, but once the lineup was settled we started to win games.
In fact I wanted to experience an away game at this level and ended up going on the supporters/players coach to Banbury on the 28th October. I was impressed we were using a Yeomans coach and we arrived in Oxfordshire around 6pm. Banbury had a decent clubhouse and the game was a 5-1 win for the Bulls. We didn’t leave though till 10.45pm as the players needed showers and to get changed, + they needed to eat, and with the M50 being closed and a ledbury drop off needing to be done I didn’t get home till 1.30am which was a late night, but an enjoyable one.
Things started to step up a gear in November. I had pretty much stayed off social media with regards to the Bulls, but during the day of the Arlesey home game and with rumours of pitch issues circulating the internet and seeing a tweet saying the grass hadn’t been cut or marked, when I was literally standing on it.
I tweeted the game was on. The reasoning behind this was on the basis of the clubs Twitter not being used and knowing their were still around 300 supporters still attending & wanted to provide the facts.
I naively didn’t expect the tirade of abuse I received on twitter mainly from anonymous keyboard warriors.
To save money the club were printing the programme via webpages and then stapling the pages together, in fact that lunchtime I ended up selling a few programmes to supporters from the reception desk prior to the Arlesey game and was interested to see boycotting supporters still turning up to buy a matchday programme for £2 but not watching the game.
The Arlesey and Dorchester games we produced excellent attacking football winning 4-1 and 4-0 respectively, It was as good on the eye as the Graham Turner/Richard O'Kelly team of 2003/2004, it was a breathe of fresh air after putting up with the, Davey, Peters & Foyle style of play the previous four seasons.
I still shudder when I think of the 0-0 home draw with Hyde. The visitors (who won one game all season) absolutely dominated us, and if it wasn’t for the brilliance of Daniel Lloyd-Weston we could have lost 6-0. All we seemed to do was hoof the ball at every opportunity, it was embarrassing and painful to view.
In mitigation the players & management though weren’t being paid and I respect the fact it would have been a truly horrible experience for them and would have affected their performance.
Anyway, back to the season in hand. Next up was the FA Trophy against Mangotsfield and this saw another win for the Bulls, but as I arrived at the office around 12.30pm Gwen Lonsdale was still working at the programme. If said it was organised chaos I don’t think it would be a fair of assumption of the situation I was witnessing, the club had the programme produced on a memory stick, but were having difficulty printing all the pages. She decided to switch computers and I tried to help by moving the computer box but only succeded in smashing it against her leg, she wasn’t impressed.
By 2.10pm I was trying to type out the teamsheets and the programmes still weren’t all printed, there was a queue in front of reception of people wanting to buy one, and people were getting agitated. Prior to September the programmes were printed properly, but after that the club were printing the pages onto A4 paper and then stapling together no doubt to save costs, but in turn creating a lot of hassle for themselves, & one of the programme sellers who had been doing it ages walked out in disgust.
The final ever home game for Hereford United was an FA Trophy tie with Sutton on November 29. We witnessed the best comedy own goal by the visitors Micky Spillane, but the Bulls were defeated 2-1. A former Bull in Glen Southam scored the final ever goal in the 88th minute. We were due in court the following Monday and I was told by the regime "we've done the best we can".
The hearing was adjourned for two more weeks, but we ended up with the farce of being suspended from the league for 24 hours and then reinstated. After the judge granted another temporary reprieve Hereford United were officially wound up on December 19.
On the pitch I was impressed by Luke Williams, Javia Roberts, Delroy Gordon, Steve Vetier, Bilal Yafai and Serge Mor-Diop, we had a bunch of players who gave 100% commitment and effort, and some of the football end of October and mid November was very pleasing on the eye. But seeing Edgar Street with crowds of around 400 was very depressing and I just hope the new phoenix club will get everybody involved so we can shoot up the leagues, but this has to be achieved by sensible budgeting and not over spending.
I was paid for my work at the club this season and I mentioned to Keith Hall the morning of the St Neots match that any money I did make would be saved and donated to the supporters trust if we were to be liquidated. Its a low three figure amount but a decent some of cash. Since then I've been thinking maybe some of it can be donated to a local charity too, but I would like the supporters to decide on that and will leave it up to the trust.
RIP Hereford United.