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Next Game: Home Against Kidderminster In The League On Boxing Day 26th December At 1.00pm

Tuesday, May 03, 2016

We Started From Scratch And We're Off To Wembley Said HUST Chairman Tompkins


HUST chairman Richard Tompkins thinks this season has been quite remarkable.

"We started from scratch in League division nine as Hereford FC, that's the Midland League," said Tomkins in an interview with SD weekly last week.

"Down at this level everybody is regionalised.

"And we've just gone on and won the League and we're still in three other trophies as well one of which is FA Vase final down at Wembley.

"The pheonix club started in 2015, it's been our first season.

"The Hereford United Supporters Trust was formed a year or two earlier in the dark days of Hereford United packing up.

"And we've come together with some people who formed Hereford FC to get our club going again.

"The last couple of years started as turmoil then all of a sudden the old club fell like a pack of cards. But all that is history now. Individuals who boycotted or went to watch the old club we've shaken hands and we've started again. There are smiles on faces.

"Five years ago a previous Hereford United director led us to believe we could only have misery and despair but I beg to differ.

"Come down and see the smiles on the kids faces down here. They are going to be jumping out of their seats at Wembley.

"Supporters Direct were very helpful to us, they helped us form a trust in the first place using their standard rules. They are helping us currently in terms of adjusting the governance accordingly and I speak personally, I've mean on a Supporters Direct course where we were talked through how to run a football trust.

"The good news is that the Council have also owned the football ground and the Trust played the community card together with those looking to form a new club and we've managed to secure Edgar Street as our home and forever may it be so.

"The next tier up is the Southern League. Below the Southern League premier division are two feeder divisions. We would hope to be in the South and West, that's a little bit more our part of the country.

"Ultimately we would like a strike back at the Football League. With attendances we've currently got, 3,000, 4,000 we are certainly capable of getting back to Conference level and then looking at another shot at the Football League."

Onto the trip to Wembley.

"It's really quite remarkable. I think we've got about 17,000 fans going now. There are people young and old so up for it including people who have just got an affinity for the place whether they were born here, they don't like football but know one end of the pitch from another. I've got for example my farming mate, he wants to go, he's going to get up at 6am to head down to Wembley on the day.

"Hereford in any form as a football club has never played at Wembley. We've got there at the fourth time of asking. Older supporters like myself know the pain of not making it before. In my programme notes on Saturday I said to the younger supporters enjoy it because it doesn't come very often.

"Ronaldo the prize Bull is going to Wembley, that's going to be my most looked forward to moment."

So what is the Trust up to?

"We are trying to improve the community focus and looking to gain further co-operation between  the football club, the Trust, the youth section UITC which is a form of charity. There's a junior section and there are exile supporters around and about including a very good bunch of people in London."