The Guardian has published the following article about Hereford in advance of tomorrow's FA Vase tie at Salisbury.
Less
than seven years ago Hereford United hosted Leicester City in League
One. A lot has changed: whereas Leicester are now five points clear at
the top of the Premier League, Hereford United no longer exist, having
been wound up in December 2014
after failing to pay a tax bill, their then owner saying he could not
make it to the high court because he was stuck in traffic.
The club, forever associated with Ronnie Radford and their 1972 FA Cup run,
may now be dust but their fans are still very much alive. Four of them,
local businessmen and a supporters’ trust helped to start a fan-owned
phoenix club last summer. Hundreds volunteered to prepare the club for a pre-season friendly against FC United of Manchester
and a campaign in the ninth tier of English football. Last Saturday
4,683 turned up at Edgar Street (300 more than attended the match
against Leicester in 2009) to watch their new team win 1-0 against
Salisbury – another phoenix club, managed by Steve Claridge – in their
FA Vase semi-final first leg.Should Hereford FC come through the second leg this Saturday, a visit to Wembley awaits, something no Hereford side have managed – the closest they came was the victorious 2006 Conference play-off final, played in Leicester as the famous arch was still under construction.
“Wembley is a massive motivation,” says Rob Purdie, who made more than 300 appearances for United and was one of the few players who decided to stay in Hereford last summer. He remembers that 2006 final well, playing 110 minutes with a bloodied shirt after he had his two front teeth “smashed horizontal” in a tackle, and he knows how much a trip to Wembley would mean to the club’s long-suffering supporters.
Rob Purdie is part of the phoenix club’s team at the age of 33. ‘I genuinely think fans would rather be where we are now than the way it was,’ he says.
“They deserve it,” says the 33-year-old, who has scored eight goals and contributed 19 assists from central midfield this season. “Even in the ninth tier I’m playing on boggy pitches where the ball doesn’t bounce but in front of the biggest crowds for five or six years. I genuinely think fans would rather be where we are now than the way it was.
“It was a massive struggle. In 2013-14 we didn’t have a particularly good set of lads. I was surprised, dropping back into the Conference, at the attitude of some of the players. There would be three or four people talking in one corner moaning about the rest of the team. We had a good core but half the dressing room just wanted to go home and pick up their money.”
By the beginning of the 2014-15 season, with financial issues forcing the club’s expulsion from the Conference to the Southern League Premier (tier seven), there was no money left and some players resorted to sleeping on camp beds at Edgar Street to get by. “The problems were so big,” continues Purdie. “Although nobody wanted Hereford United to go bust, it is probably the best thing that could have happened.”
Things could hardly be going better in FC’s first season. Despite the club not having a full squad until one week before their first match, they are on course for promotion. In a team of part-timers – Purdie is now a personal trainer – they average more than three goals a game in the Midland Football League, in no small part down to John Mills, a striker signed in July who has scored 44 times in all competitions. Last season he got 57 for Didcot Town.
Hereford fans will be hoping Mills will be on similar form against Salisbury on Saturday – the day before his 26th birthday – but it will likely be a tight affair; only a Mustapha Bundu header separated the sides last weekend. It will be the first time Hereford FC’s fans will have been outnumbered in their short history but such is the weight of demand for away tickets the club have sold out a live screening of the game, to be beamed at Edgar Street, as well.
With that level of support, Hereford FC represent a club truly reborn, on the up and with a shot at Wembley. United’s old motto – “Our greatest glory lies not in never having fallen but in rising when we fall” – could not be more appropriate.