 |
| Matt Healey Interviewing Former Hereford United Striker Rob Elms - Many Of 'Elmo's' Goals Are Featured On Matt's You Tube Channel |
Matt Healey's You Tube Channel has now received over one million hits.
The channel focuses on both Hereford United and Hereford FC footage
"I created the account in 2012, but only uploaded one video in the first three years," said Matt in an article on YourHerefordshire.
Matt said it been difficult finding old match footage much of which was first aired on ITV Central South.
"The regional ITV Channel back then was based in Abingdon and broadcast news on Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire. Every Monday the sports presenter Tim Russon would round up the local goals involving the region’s football teams and as a young lad I used to tape the Hereford United matches.
"Sadly my tapes had perished so I presumed that footage would never be seen again, back then if you missed it that was it, there was no catchup, or internet to see the clips once more. I contacted Tim (Russon) to see if the footage was saved, he told me it was all stored in tape containers near the old ITV Meridian studios near Southampton and they had no interest in restoring it sadly.
Hereford United 2-0 Burnley - 14th September 1991 - YouTube
"A couple of years earlier Francis Williams from Radio Hereford FC had converted some DVD footage of Hereford United FA Cup games against West Ham and Arsenal to MP4 for me and I put that on my channel and they did well. I then had the thought of seeing if I could somehow find some of that old Central News South footage of the football club, so I put an appeal out on the Bulls News fan site in 2017.
"Luckily plenty of Hereford supporters were also taping the footage in the 1990’s and subsequently I was given about 200 old VHS cassettes of Hereford United footage by various supporters. Joanie Roberts at the football club kindly sourced me and old VHS tape player. I needed the software to convert it on my laptop and Mark Farmer was able to supply me with that.
"I spent most of my spare time the next 12-18 months going through tapes and editing the Hereford United footage and then uploading it to my channel. I used Ron Parrott’s book to include the match description and then playlisted all the seasons. Ron had also a Hereford city history VHS so I converted that and split it into different sections and that did very well. It’s great having all this footage digitally restored as VHS tapes after a while disintegrate and the footage would have been lost forever.
Hereford United 1-0 Burton Albion - 10th March 2001 - YouTube
"The best part of it has been receiving messages from former Hereford United players who hadn’t seen the footage before and were overjoyed to be able to see themselves playing the game and watching it with their families. A lot of these players weren’t household names and presumed they would never see footage of themselves in a football shirt."
Read more at: https://yourherefordshire.co.uk/all/news/news-matts-herefordshire-youtube-channel-achieves-over-one-million-views/