Gomez the Mexican cat has sent Bulls News their thoughts after the board's decision to sack Pete Beadle, with assistant Steve Jenkins leaving the club soon after.
There is not a lot that surprises me in life now, I am too old and cynical, but to say I was surprised to turn onto Twitter and see that Peter Beadle had been given his marching orders, is to put it mildly (to say nothing of shocked, appalled, flabbergasted, and several words I am too polite to write down).
Quite seriously, what is the board thinking?
I appreciate I am just a fan, and I am not privy to what goes on behind the scenes, in the board room, in the dressing room, and with the finances, but again, seriously?
I am not naïve enough to think that Peter Beadle was perfect, that he was the manager that would take us back to the league, that all is going swimmingly with the team.
I was at Brackley last Saturday and it was disappointing. We didn’t play well, but if we’d had 11 men for the second half, perhaps it would have been a different story. This season was always going to be harder than the previous campaigns. We have gone from being the Man City of non-league football to just another former league club trying to get back into the football league in one promotion.
That promotion has pitted us against other former league teams, and others with the aspirations to get there, many of whom are full time with larger playing budgets and more experience at this level. Each promotion has given us a new challenge, one we need to settle into, and although recent results hadn’t gone our way, I am in no doubt we’d have had a reasonable season.
What do I mean by reasonable? Well a top 10 finish, perhaps a tilt at the play offs, but not automatic promotion. Would National League South have been easier? We will never know because we didn’t get a choice in where we went.
Might we have kept certain players if we had stayed south? Perhaps, but there were some budgetary restrictions and that may have affected some we had hoped would stay even if we had gone to National League South.
The team under Peter Beadle (both Hereford United and Hereford FC) have given us some magical times. The escape at Aldershot will remain one of my all-time favourite occasions following Hereford and to get us to where we are now has been incredible considering the base we started from.
He has proved to be ruthless at times, axing those who didn’t make the grade, at times making decisions perhaps we didn’t like but always with the best interests of the team at heart. His contacts within the footballing system, and those of Steve Jenkins, have proved vital with successful loanees from clubs like WBA and Bristol City to name a few.
While you could say what goes around, comes around, today’s decision to me makes no sense at all. I know there were grumblings as I left Brackley on Saturday and the midweek performance against Westfields must have left much to be desired, but from what I read, that was partly down to individual errors which you cannot account for.
What next, well at this precise moment I am not filled with confidence. We will have to see who is on the touchline on Saturday.
To finish, a huge thank you to Peter Beadle and Steve Jenkins for all your dedication and hard work. You are both Hereford legends and deserved better.
Gomez the Mexican Cat