Harwood Bull reflects on last weeks events at Hereford United.
“Stuck in traffic” is up there with “the dog ate my homework” in the list of the world’s lamest excuses. If the future of a company I “owned” and had “invested” time and money in was hanging by a thread I would make damn sure I was at the court hearing on time. Did he really think he was going to leave Staines at 3.30 and get to the law courts by 4.30? My arse!
We have the result we sort of wanted, although when I saw the news on BN I felt the same sort of shock as when I saw that we had been expelled from the conference. The guy who tweeted that it was like having your favourite pet put down summed it up well. Desperately sad but it had to be done.
I feel a twinge of sympathy for of the players, not much, but a bit. They are just young hopefuls trying to get a break into the professional game, and have probably been treated as badly by Agombar and Lonsdale as last season’s squad was. However it must have been pretty clear to them early on what was going on, and they chose to keep playing. They could have walked away – it’s not as if they were tied by lucrative contracts. Or any contracts worth the name.
The role of social media in the outcome can’t be underestimated. Everything said and done by Lonsdale and Agombar, and their shady pasts was subject to detailed scrutiny, and when the court decided on Friday we knew within seconds, and minutes later supporters were being directed to get down to defend Edgar Street.
The whole experience has made me very unhappy about the lack of any kind of support or protection offered by the game’s governing bodies for small clubs and the communities they represent. The absurdity of men like Agombar and Lonsdale being able to control football clubs! BN and Save Edgar Street unearthed damming evidence of the true nature of these men – why can’t the game’s administrators get to grips with it?
Another depressing point, and this goes far wider than football, is how easy it appears to be for dishonest men to go through life leaving a trail of failed companies and ruined lives behind them, sticking two fingers up to the law and to society, and probably thinking that they deserve to get away with it. Let’s hope that they have met their match on this occasion. Like many I still fear that there could be another twist.
There may still be bitterness and animosity between the two groups of fans but we have to go forward together. I’m sure there will also be a lot of disagreement about how we go forward, but the all important thing is sustainability, and never again being in the position where one person’s whim, or incompetence, or deviousness, or greed, or ego can decide what happens to the club.
The club is dead, long live the new club.