Another view of the Hale/HUST plans for 'Hereford FC' has come from the 'On The Terraces' blog.
After discussing the Salisbury situation the blog turned to Hereford.
(Please note this was written before this evening's 'Answers' from Hereford FC)
The complete article can be read at: https://ontheterracesblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/salisbury-fc-hereford-fc-lessons-learned-or-more-of-the-same/
The complete article can be read at: https://ontheterracesblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/salisbury-fc-hereford-fc-lessons-learned-or-more-of-the-same/
The other club to have been booted out
from the Conference would have much more symptathy from outsiders and
also a fanbase whose bloody single mindedness has been rewarded by the
removal of the leeches who sought to destroy the club.
After surviving in the Conference Prem on
the last day, the HUST offered to buy the club off Keyte who promptly
sold it to convicted criminal Tommy Agombar, whose very first move was
to try and move the leases from the councils control to his own private
company.
When former workers weren’t being paid and
Agombar, Lonsdale et al were merely a more horrific version of owners
then what had gone before the Hereford fans did something which must
become standard practise for all fans. They boycotted.
Led by the Hereford United Supporters
Trust (HUST), the vast majority of fans refused to give a penny to those
running the club and the aim was clear: Starve the bastards out. Long
story short; the fans won the victory but in looking to form a phoenix
club, have they won the war?
The only option that has emerged after the
winding up was the offer of Jon Hale which has the backing of the HUST
leadership but by the looks of things, not all the members. To my
surprise, the HUST had not developed an independent plan for 51% fan
ownership from the time of the boycott to the winding up of Hereford
United in court.
I am starting to feel this blog is
recently a place of friendly fire, where I spend more time having a pop
at Supporters Trusts such as Cardiff and to a lesser degree Newcastle,
for not having the same level of radicalism/conviction as the HUST
boycott. Still, issues and serious questions remain over the offer that
is about to be laid before rank and file HUST members.
The Hale/HUST partnership is trying to put
together what they feel is in the best interests of the club and
although I will spend the majority of this post looking at problems, it
is right and proper to give both the credit they deserve. Let’s not
forget that the very first video to appear of the HUST account was
of Jon Hale asking fans to come to a meeting, to see whether they would
like to set up a supporters trust.
I do not doubt that Jon Hale wants to see a
successful, financially viable Hereford FC and he is not in it for
financial gain. Might there be a slight desire to be more well-known and
have his own form of legacy? Perhaps, though even if this is the case
that does not make him the devil and some of the hostility towards his
offer is slightly overstated.
He has been on the radio just last
Saturday for over an hour in an interview that the H&W radio has
frustrating failed to put up in one go but bullsnews has covered for
those of us who couldn’t listen (here & here).
He has at most stages tried to be a visible presence, Jon has urged
people to join the HUST and also the Hereford FC website has stated that
it is closely monitoring the concerns of fans.
This is a complete contrast to the
ownership of recent years and is to his credit. Lastly, the contents of
said meeting and the model proposed is online for all to see and discuss
(here). This is where the several concerns that have surfaced start.
First and most importantly, the HUST
appears to be banned from ever owning more than 50%. Sadly, as soon as I
heard that “HUST to be biggest shareholder in Hereford FC plan” I knew
it meant less than 51% and was pretty dismayed. The HUST is the fans, certainly the vast majority of them. As Jon Hale has said himself, without the HUST support there is no plan.
Also, the HUST will be “given the
opportunity to own up to 50% by buying shares” with the amount doing the
rounds being that HUST have to raise £150,000. Do they not start with
50% from the beginning of the club? If not, this means they don’t even
start with half of the club and in effect have 0% to the businessmen’s
100%. Any argument that they have to make a contribution is nonsense.
The fans make a contribution every time they step through those
turnstiles, 1000 fans over 15 games at £10 is £150,000 so in my eyes,
there’s your contribution.
I would’ve thought that the fans had
already shown what happens when people assume the money they pay is not a
contribution to the running of the club, mainly through the massive
boycott they successfully pulled off.
Of course, what incentive is there to
raise the money anyway now the club has been secured by someone else?
All urgency and momentum is completely sucked out of this by the fact
that the final goal is a miserable compromise of never being allowed to
own your own club. Combine this with the fact that the directorships
will be a 4/3 split with the businessmen having four and the trust
having three.
As a result, they will always be in a
position to be outvoted if it ever came to a group gaining shares
against the trust. Now the plan proposes that someone can only own 24%
but you can easily find (as we have seen at Rangers in a positive way)
people can gang up to gain a majority stake. What is to stop people
doing this and gaining a majority stake whilst the HUST is paying for
theirs and just changing the rules so they can buy the shares allocated
for the HUST? They couldn’t be blocked in the boardroom.
Also, how come if the HUST get 50% and
thereby making them the majority shareholder they can still be outvoted
in the boardroom? We have already seen at Exeter City how despite being
fan owned a board, which does not have the majority of fans on, tried to
seize control and make the supporters trust no more than a fundraising
group.
The reality is that although the
people who are in charge now may be great people this isn’t about them,
this is about making sure what has happened can never happen again.
Under the current plans, this is not secure.
Still, there is a meeting where these
proposals will be presented to fans and I am sure fan Tommy Agombar will
be joining me and others there (because he loves his football, he’s a
football man) but as there is no other offer and as the HUST did not
develop one, it has the feeling of being a fait accompli.
A valid criticism that noone else at
Hereford has come up with anything for a fan owned football club has
been met with the fair response that HUST members, on voting for the
leadership, were under the assumption that they were liasing with fellow
clubs and perhaps Supporters Direct to be given the advice and
expertise to put forward a plan before the club inevitably went pop.
I must admit to part of my criticism is
just how big a missed opportunity this all is. I mean think about it,
all the free publicity due to the Ronnie Radford goal etc, the boycott
gaining national coverage and widespread support. It could’ve been the
HUST came out in September after the boycott and asked all football
supporters to put money into a holding account to use to reform the side
when United goes bust.
Putting forward a vision of a club that
would never again return to the dark days and this fan owned club would
be different. I could easily see a lot of money come in from many
ordinary fans and the call to arms go viral with the help of FC United,
David Conn and others. Also, how many sponsors or national brands
would’ve wanted to jump on this bandwagon and gain some easy PR by
helping the club? I guess quite a few. I am confident they would have
raised enough cash through fans and sponsors.
Fan owned and reforming in Step 5, having a
massive attendance for the first game with big coverage, perhaps the
ground redevelopment being funded by using a community share scheme as
pioneered by FC United. Hereford could’ve been the new poster boy after
AFC Wimbledon for fan owned clubs and media coverage but instead the
story will be ‘businessmen reforms Hereford’ and they will be just
another club.
Maybe the HUST has spoken to people at AFC
Telford, Chester, FC United and for whatever reason decided it wasn’t
suitable for a future Hereford to be fan owned but it is a great shame
that the feel good factor on removing the leeches seems to be ebbing
away, if only slightly.
The likely reality is the Club will reform
at Step 5 and get promoted under the consortium (which they would have
done under fan ownership anyway). In fact, Hereford FC will be unlikely
to meet many teams who can compete in terms of crowds or ways to
generate money, thereby attracting players who want to score a winner in
front of 1000’s rather than a few spectators, until at least the
Conference South. By the time HUST get 50%, the glorious rise up the
divisions will be over and the long hard slog of trying to escape the
Conference Prem with a dozen other teams will be their inheritance.
Sadly, it just feels that all the sacrifices were made by the bulk of
the fans and yet the success is to be owned by someone else.
Again, I am being too much of a
depressive. Would this be the end of the world for Hereford fans? God
no. They still have wonderful moments to come, regular promotions with a
team to support and a board who are fully committed to the club.
Re-entering the FA Cup in a couple of seasons time, running a surplus
every year and going back to the Conference in a far stronger shape then
when they left it.
Of course, let no one say I offer only
criticism and have no solution. If Hereford fans feel due to time
running out they have to vote for the Hale option but still want to take
Hereford into fan ownership there is a way. You can copy the example of
Rangers First, which (ignoring the internal politics) is separate from
Rangers Supporters Trust but still a fan led group. In simple terms,
Rangers First (here)
is getting subscriptions from people and then using that money solely
to buy a stake in the club. You could set up a Hereford First scheme and
save enough money to hold until you have enough cash to buy a sizeable %
in the club shares that is not reserved for the HUST, thereby putting
you into being 51% fan owned.
There can be no serious criticism of you
doing this because under the current plan becoming fan owned through the
HUST has been blocked, so you are merely using two avenues to get the
result I feel the majority of fans wanted in the first place.
Still (and this is where we can leave it
for now), Jon Hale and the HUST leadership have shown themselves to be
far more competent in the way they have handled criticism and questions
whilst, it must be noted, having full time jobs to hold down. They
should be commended despite understandably valid concerns after all that
has happened at Hereford.
Finally, cheap attacks on them which have
come from certain people who were far too close to the leeches running
the club beforehand should be dismissed as a desperate attempt to
deflect attention from their shameful actions in this sad, sorry saga.
There we have it then, two clubs who for
the same reason fell into similar problems and found themselves in the
clutches of scummy owners, from which they are now free. Both will
probably start at Step 5 and be promoted in one season. It won’t be long
until they cross paths as they re-climb the pyramid, we can only hope
that at both Salisbury FC and Hereford FC, lessons have finally been
learned.
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