Continuing BN's look back at the setting uo of Hereford FC, we republish an interview with former chairman David Keyte originally posted on January 30th 2015.
Former Hereford United chairman
David Keyte spoke to BBC Hereford and Worcester this afternoon. He says
he was prompted to do so after seeing quotes from HUST vice-chairman
Martin Watson on Bulls News earlier today.
"Thank you for giving me a bit of
airtime, as you know you and I could talk for three hours on this
subject," Keyte told Trevor Owens.
"I've kept my own counsel for the
last eight or nine months but there's been an awful lot of things said,
usually at my expense, that have just sort of supported these various
agendas which different factions have worked on to their own ends.
"I didn't hear the interview this
morning but I tend to read Bulls News for my sins and I noticed the
quote from Martin that said that the club had lost £1.5M in my four
years which is quite frankly absolute nonsense.
"I just felt this was the one thing which would start me getting my two penny-worth into all this.
"The first year in my tenure we
made a profit of £431K. If you recall we bought back the leases and
wrote off the £1M debt to the Richardson Brothers which gave us a net
profit of £431K end of year.
"The next year was the year we
were relegated from the Football League and we chased that a bit, we
tried to avoid it and we ran up a loss of about £400K.
"And then in our first year in
the Conference we had a similar high £400K loss. Technically the final
year of my four years I don't think anybody to this day has closed the
accounts off because we finished before the year end.
"But if you say a similar £400K
or so, the loss in the four years was less than £1M and the directors at
the time funded that £1M out of their own personal money."
Keyte was then asked if he regretted not selling to the Supporters Trust.
"I didn't have the option, they never came back.
"We met the supporters trust
group which significently did not include Chris Williams, their
chairman, who was unavailable. But Martin and four or five other people
came along.
"We met. We being the board of
directors, Dave Preedy, Bob Pritchard, Colin Addison and we listened and
we heard their offer of £1 which you might appreciate from a personal
point of view for all of us was quite close to insulting.
"We asked the question which you
would expect in a business meeting proof of funding, as we were looking
for £300K to pay immediate debts, which they couldn't supply.
"We wanted to know who would do
the due diligence for them, bearing in mind they were a community at
that time of about 400 members. We needed some idea of who would come in
and do due diligence and they couldn't give us an answer to that."
Owens then pointed out that the claim always was that you (Keyte) would not let them see the books.
"David Keyte refused to let HUST
see the books, David Keyte murdered our club. The facts are we left that
meeting and the next day Martin Watson put out an agreed statement,
which I had agreed - he had been good enough to share it with me, which
said 'it was an amicable meeting and that they had left to seek advice
from Supporters Direct'.
"And it was on these very topics
of how do we accommodate due diligence in a private limited company when
we are trying to talk for four hundred members and how do we give proof
of funding when we have about £5K in the bank but we think through
pledges we could get to whatever money they thought they could.
"I've read since from Chris
William's quote that £220K was offered. Never, ever offered in that
meeting. He wasn't there and then they never came back.
"So we were left with two outside investors to choose between and rightly or wrongly we went with Agombar.
"I'm not going to speak for the last period that he was involved and Lonsdale because quite frankly it was shocking.
"But we had sold having decided
as a board we could go no further. Personal finances. We could take it
no further. We needed to find outside investment which we were publicly
saying for the last six months of our tenure. So let's clear that one up
for once and for all."
Owens suggested that the setting up of a phoenix club was a sensible move.
"You could call it a sensible
move. This Hereford FC was opened on April 1st 2014 by two people named
as directors, John Hale and Chris Williams.
"When it became clear that
Agombar was going to fail, they started to introduce that publicly as
the saviour. It had been opened on April 1st when a lot of people were
still trying to fundraise for the old club.
"It will all be opinions won't
it. But as I speak now there will be half of Hereford saying let's not
listen to him he killed our club. But the facts are that there are some
interesting twists of personalities.
"How could the HUST be making
independent decisions on behalf of their members when their chairman
Chris Williams was already set up as a director of Hereford FC.
"How can HUST make independent
decisions rather than just go with there's no other choice but to go in
with these mysterious benefactors who could have, probably could have
come forward and saved the 90 year old club at no more, lots of figures
have been banded about Trevor, but I know for a fact that Andrew Green,
the Agombar accountant, and Lonsdale himself were arguing between
whether it could be £700K or £750K."
Finally Owens asked Keyte whether
he regretted selling to Agombar given 'you said it's not the vicar
coming to buy the football club' and it was obvious he wasn't going to
pass the FA's fit and proper person test.
"Well it was more about the case
that the previous directors had decided to call it a day and he was the
only person that came forward."
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