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| David Keyte |
In the second
part of David Keyte's 2020 interview with Matt Healey for Your Herefordshire,
the former Hereford United chairman praises
previous chairman Graham Turner.
But first Keyte talks Gary Peters and Richard O'Kelly.
"In that time
period Gary Peters on social media was absolutely castigated. It's all
hoof-ball and Peters must be directing it, who is running it and who is
not. Peters stayed on until it was obvious I had to chat to him and say
to him we need to settle with you and off you go. Initially I couldn't
get it through before Christmas and by the time the February Gillingham
result came through, a week or so later the feeling was that Gary wasn't
the right person for us at that time with all the negativity around the
chap."
Do you think you should have been a bit stronger in that situation and not listened to social media?
"I don't know
whether it was just social media to be perfectly honest. When you sit
back on it for six years, a lot of things you can't undo in life, we can
all have regrets and see your mistakes with hindsight.
"The one thing I
wish really as it turned out was in a boardroom with three people where
you are the only one putting any money into the football club I think I
was a bit foolish compared to previous business life to actually give
people an equal vote.That's one thing I do look back on and I probably
should have pushed it through."
So with the board of directors you put the money in and other board members hadn't put anything in?
"Initially, Tim
didn't put any money into the football club and Grenville was on the
board, we inherited Grenville if you like and he wasn't putting money
in. There was no investment initially other than myself. And then Dave
Preedy and Nick Nenadich came on the board and we had more lines of
investment. I suspect Nick probably put £200,000 plus in and Dave and
Caroline Preedy either money and or equipment, particuarily when we did
up the social club and not least time. They put in a hell of a lot of
time. Financially I did during that second season clearly looking back,
clearly in my mind the season went by. Probably, I think, because of
that reason the boardroom not at one and/or management structure not at
one you could say we got what we deserved and got relegated."
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Richard O'Kelly was the manager when we went down. Did you have a good relationship with him?
"Yes, nice chap.
I don't think anybody could fail to have a good relationship with
Richard O'Kelly. He's doing really well now at Aston Villa. I met him in
London once at a function. I didn't remember but he reminded me that my
wife had knitted him a sock in club colours or something. Yes, really
nice chap. And clearly a coach who gets the best out of players. Out of
the same set of players you could see them improving. I remember going
to Crawley Town, we were almost dead and buried, second from last game,
they were fourth I think from memory and we ran them ragged. It was just
gelling. But we made the changes too late that season in my opinion."
We were
relegated into the Conference. There must be some regrets with some of
the contracts that were given out to players who, as I understand, were
on the same Football League money when we went into non-league?
"That's always
been a bit of nonsense, a bit of a misinformation through social media
that. Football League player contracts are standard forms. And there
will be a paragraph for increased wages for promotion, x percent.
Decreased wages on relegation, x percent. There is a caviat where
players can opt not to sign that bit, i e he forgoes that an increase in
wages on promotion but he hangs onto his money on relegation. So every
player bar two lost 20% of their wages when we got down in the
Conference. I've like everybody else saw on social media that Keyte
screwed up the contracts and so on, they were all on silly money. That
was not the case. Anybody who knew Harry Pell only had to ask him. He
was on £800 a week in League Two and went down to £640 in the
Conference. The thing that did catch us was that we had, with hindsight,
probably committed to many players that next year which was something I
was working through with Gary Peters to cover off the worst case
senario and maintain a squad that we believed could get us back up
straight away. And we had about ten carried forward for another year.
Wages went down for the reason I just said but Richard O'Kelly decided
not to stay on so we had to recruit another manager and that was Martin
Foyle and what happens in football, managers have their own players that
they try to attract to their club with players perhaps they don't like.
So Martin set off in his way to get a squad together and a lot of those
faces didn't fit in with the new manager, that was an expense too
looking back."
Gary Peters was still around then, would it have been an easier option to have given him the job or was he not interested.
"From memory he
was almost written off through the image that was around the football
club of him. It's was unfair but he still with it and was prepared to
stay in the same role for the new manager. In turn Martin said he could
work with Gary so he stayed in the role he had come to the club as
before."
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How did you get on with Martin Foyle?
"Again very
well, I can remember him in my back garden talking about players. Very
nice chap, nice family. He set off to bring in the players he could find
and I think he did that quite successfully. We picked up Marley Watkins
from Bath for nothing. Ryan Bowman as well. Sam Clucas was already with
us, Clucas we picked up when Glen Hoddle brought his Spanish academy
for a friendly at Edgar Street and Gary Peters took a liking to Clucas,
very athletic, gets up and down the pitch. When you look across the
football line now we had, and I know in Graham Turner's time over the
years, we've had players in and out of the football club to get better
results. We had a decent squad and we had what you get when you drop out
of the football league financially, and I know it's moved on again, at
that time we were getting £725,000 per year through being a League Two
club. Basically £60,000 a month before you play a match, before you open
the turnstiles. And when you drop into the Conference we moved down to
£48,000, £4,000 a month. The exception for one year we got a parashute
payment of £215,000. So the pressure is on to make use of that compared
to other clubs in that Conference League and get yourself back up which
is very difficult to do.
Now when
Cheltenham Town got relegated that had moved on to £450,000 for one year
and they got back up and now it moved onto, I forgot the figure, for
two seasons.So it's likely that you would see in the Conference now
something of a revolving door where most League clubs should be able to
get themselves pushing for promotion whilst having that parashute money.
But it was us it was quite a drop and I think from memory we had a
player budget of about £650,000 which was competitive, not the highest.
You think of places like Forest Green supposedly around £1.4M. And we
came in mid-division, we were threatening play-off place but we came in
really a distant sixth in the end. We couldn't do it. That was
disappointing. So you lose your £215,000 for the next season and I know
Martin is on record as saying we kept moving the budget and to be honest
that summer we, and I in particular, had started to think I'm not going
to keep doing this just to be abused on social media, it was the
general feeling across the boardroom. So we put a budget together that
actually assumed we would lose £300,000 in the year ahead unless you had
a cup run or a big transfer. And the playing budget was reduced to
about £400,000 from memory or £450,000 Obviously Martin had to rip up a
few pieces of paper he had got with names on and get a squad together
for the budget. But we felt it was sufficent to consolidate in the
Conference and I think I would be happy to go on record and say I don't
think the performances were as good as they could have been even on that
budget. And I think perhaps Martin lost his way a bit two thirds of the
way through the season. You see it all the time in football when it's
going well the manager and the players are praised. When it's not it's
usually we haven't got a decent budget or it's pushed upstairs when it's
not going well. And maybe the new set-up will be reaching the level now
when they will see a bit more of that. But I guess that's football."
And the crowds dropped off quite significently in the Conference as well looking back at the attendances?
"Well they do,
don't they. You would expect them to. I've got to say the Hereford crowd
is an odd one to gauge. You can have a great result and there are less
people watching the following week. And something can happen and you get
a bigger crowd so you can't tell to the last few hundred. Financially
there is a sort of unwritten formula I would say around the Conference
that you needed crowds of 2000, you probably needed a cup run to the
first, ideally second round of the FA Cup and if you could sell a player
somewhere along the way you might break even. Maybe go back to Graham's
time and he knew that. If you have a bad season the pressure is on
financially. If you can sell a player or two you can live another day.
That's where Hereford sits in the football world. In my view somewhere
between the Conference and League Two Hereford United. The new lot are
making their way and maybe they are just reaching that point now where
to run it sustainably will get you to a certain point and then the
people who put some money in or the manager who gets a squad that justs
gells from nowhere. Look at the two brothers from Lincoln City, very
similar club to Hereford in my view. Something happened right for them
and they went off a great Cup run, they got out of the Conference and up
again. Sometimes it just gells and it happens. Other times it's lots of
money that gets you up there.
"As we
experienced we put more money into player budgets in the first couple of
seasons and probably got less return than you would have hoped. Whereas
Graham Turner, being one of the better lower league managers there has
ever been I'd say, got more out of a lesser budget. There's no divine
right.The players dressing room not least they can move a manager out if
they so wish. There are lots of things that make up the results at 5pm
on a Saturday afternoon up and down the country I'm sure."
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You've mentioned Graham Turner a few times. Did you ever go to him for any advice?
"No, not really.
He was very helpful in those early discussions. He mentioned Simon
Davey. I can recall we had a tribunal for Marc Pugh, he had gone to
Bournemouth and we were waiting on a settlement and Graham offered to
come down to London and come to the hearing with me. I didn't take him
up on it. I went down there and actually met Simon Davey down there who
had joined us by then I remember Simon was on hoiliday with his family
on the South Coast and we had met him at the FA place in London and I
noticed he had a suit on alright but he hadn't got any socks so I walked
around to a shop and bought him a pair of socks before we went into the
meeting.
"Graham, I would
have to say the further it went on the more you would have to have
admiration for the chap. What he did at Hereford was quite incredible. I
think he probably had spells where it could have got worse before it
got better. He put his hand up to keep the club going. By about 2002 the
club was £1.6M in debt. The correlation between the football pitch and
the finances at the club were clear. He got a team together with Richard
O'Kelly helping and they finally got promoted back into the Football
League, back into the money pot. The finances of the club turned back
the other way.