There will be a lot of press interest in the Hereford FC story this week given the club are playing in the FA Vase final at Wembley next Sunday.
This morning The Mail on Sunday has an article with pictures written by Oliver Holt.
Not much
more than a year ago, Edgar Street was a place of broken dreams. A fine,
elegant old stadium, it lay bedraggled and unkempt in the shadow of a
shiny new shopping development in Hereford city centre.
There
was a Waitrose, a Wagamama, a Jack Wills and a nice, paved pedestrian
area; all the usual trappings of English urban regeneration.
And
then there was the football ground. Lying there like a derelict. Lying
ragged and hopeless, washed up and beaten, like an embarrassment to a
cathedral city which was trying to spruce itself up.
Back then,
it was home to the epitome of a football club gone wrong. It was a
symbol of the game’s disappearing heritage. Hereford United were a small
club and a proud club, run into the ground by unscrupulous owners who
bled them and battered them and then stood over them and watched them
die.
They
had slid out of League Two in 2012 and been expelled from the
Conference because of financial irregularities in June 2014 before they
were finally wound up by the High Court in December 2014.
For several months, Edgar Street was trapped in its misery, preserved in the moment that it ceased to be.
An
artificial Christmas tree stood forlornly in the Addison Bar well into
the following spring. A plate of mince pies still sat on the counter in
early May. In the home changing room, dirty, damp kit from the last
match lay discarded on the floor.
The
stadium was left the way it was when the club went out of business,
reeking of sweat and mildew and crowded with piles of rubble, like a
warning to other threatened teams that this was what would happen if
their worst nightmares ever came true.
I went back last week. The contrast was so beautiful it was almost funny.
It
was a warm spring day and groups of kids from four local schools sat in
great big circles on the pitch, eating their packed lunches, laughing
and joking and running and chasing and playing.
When
lunch was over, gangs of them headed for the goalmouths, like kids
always do. One of them dribbled the ball towards the net and shouted
‘...and Mills scores at Wembley!’ as he smashed it into the net
Volunteers
led other groups of children on tours of the stadium. The dressing rooms
are sparkling clean now. The dugouts are freshly painted. ‘We’ve put a
smile back on the old girl’s face,’ said one of the guides.
The
place was full of life and verve and optimism. A phoenix club, Hereford
FC, sprang up here last summer and the months since then have flown by
in a whirl of joy and revival.
The
club entered the ninth tier of the Football League pyramid, the Midland
Football League Premier Division, and promptly won it.
They
finished seven points clear of their nearest rivals, Alvechurch. They
lost three of their first five games and then went on a run of 27
successive victories. They scored 138 league goals. Their leading
striker, John Mills, scored 40 of them. Their goal difference was plus
105.
And
the crowds have come flooding back. Hereford FC attracted an attendance
of more than 4,000 for their first home league game, higher than four
League One games that took place that day. They have averaged more than
2,800 at Edgar Street.
Enthusiasm
is running wild. Some of the players, who are part-time, broke off from
their jobs and gave up their lunch hours to come down to speak to the
kids last week and take part in impromptu training sessions. They have
bought into the rebirth as much as the supporters.
It’s
a heady world they are living in. These are ninth-tier players, the
majority of whom have little chance of making it as professionals, and
yet they have been performing in front of nearly 3,000 fans every other
week.
After every home game, supporters wait outside the ground, clamouring for autographs and selfies.
The
club, who will play next season in the Southern League South and West
and will be allowed to enter the FA Cup — the competition that gave them
their most famous moment when they caused one of the biggest shocks in
English football history by knocking Newcastle United out in a third
round replay in 1972 — have regained their place at the heart of the
community.
There’s
more, too. The kid who was pretending he was at Wembley wasn’t just on a
wild flight of fancy. Hereford United never got to play at the national
stadium but next Sunday the club who honour their memory will walk out
at Wembley to contest the FA Vase Final against Morpeth Town.
Hereford have sold 19,000 tickets for the final. Yes, you read that right. Most of the town is going.
A
Wembley Shop, dedicated to Hereford merchandise, has sprung up next to
Wagamama. Curly wigs in Hereford’s black and white colours are selling
particularly briskly.
Even
the club’s new sponsors are feeling the love. ‘Bless Jewson,’ said
Hereford’s commercial manager Chris Ammonds, ‘because they took a bit of
a punt on us at the start of the season.
‘They
were backing nothing, really. Now, we’ve probably sold 1,800 shirts
with their name on them and they will be on BT Sport for the FA Vase.’
During
the afternoon, Hereford’s manager, Peter Beadle, took a quick break
from talking to the kids and dashed out to collect the suit he will be
wearing at Wembley. The club are four promotions away from a return to
the Football League now but Beadle is trying not to get carried away.
‘Even
though we are getting 2,000 through the gate, the hardest thing is
still putting a team out on the pitch that is going to win,’ said
Beadle.
‘If
we had got knocked out in the semis of the Vase and finished fourth in
the league, would that still be a fairy tale? I think so but I’m not
sure all the fans would feel that way. We just have to try to maintain
this enthusiasm. We have gone up in a straight line. There has been no
steady incline.’
There
is only one question still to be answered. What happened to the mince
pies? ‘Oh, we sold them,’ said Ammonds, keeping a straight face. ‘It’s
all about sustainability.’
