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| Hereford FC Chairman Ken Kinnersley With HUST Chairman Richard Tompkins |
"We were assembled here (in the Boardroom) for a board meeting and at 4.55pm in late November Martin (Watson) received a text message from UITC informing us that they were issuing a press release in five minutes," said Kinnersley.
"The press release that came out made reference to a breakdown in relations with Hereford Football Club. That was the first we knew that relations had “broken down”.
"There was an on-going issue in the background that I had been tasked by the FA through the HFA to deal with."
Was that a complaint?
"There was an issue I had been asked to deal with, that's all I can say. On reflection, I suspect the "breakdown in relations" was more with me, personally, than it was with "the club" per se but that is for someone representing UITC to confirm.
"The press release said that they were going to cease running the academy as at the end of the year which effectively gave us one month and that they would cease all other operations at the end of the season. As I understand it that has now changed. It is the case that following the UITC refusal in late 2015 to allow HFC some control of youth operations the Trustees had been made aware that it was the intention of HFC to launch both an Academy and to embark on Community engagement but only when the time was right for the club.
"We then issued a statement the same evening setting out the fact that we were surprised and disappointed with the UITC statement and in the interests of the youth players the decision was made to form the Hereford FC Academy.
"I have to pay credit here to director Paul Quarrell in particular. He was the only one amongst the directors who had any knowledge of football coaching at all having been a coach at Pegasus.
"Paul was awarded the honour (and I say that tongue in cheek) of being Chairman of the HFC Academy. He took responsibility for setting it up and in mid-December we held an open evening for the players and parents. They were obviously very concerned and we had a full house at the launch. Manager Peter Beadle came along and was very entertaining and I think his support and engagement with the Academy has made a big difference. With his co-operation we have now integrated the Academy players, particularly the u18s, much more closely with the first team.
"We did everything as professionally as we could, we took advice and implemented best practice wherever possible. Importantly, we've now engaged a top quality welfare officer who oversees the Academy, in fact she now oversees the whole football club and is a real asset."
Who is she?
"Her name is "Helen Byard and she joined the club last season. Helen has attended all the relevant FA courses and is present at all meetings where safeguarding is relevant." I am delighted to say that there are a number of initiatives she plans to introduce and these will benefit a lot of people within the club.
It was reported that the aim of the club was to make the academy 100% self sufficient. Is it?
"With start-up costs it was difficult last year but - year in year out the academy must be self-supporting. As a result we had to increase charges this year but we are still very competitive when compared to similar private enterprises in the county charging £50 to £55 a month so we remain very competitive. HFC will not be subsidising the Academy that would not be appropriate but we will be pleased to accept sponsorship and the monthly charges this season are in the region of £40."
The club is still using UITC's Central Park for fixtures?
"Now and again but when we can we are tending to use Pegasus because given the relationship we now have it is in our interest and we also use Lads Club from time to time. This is very much Martin Watsons area of responsibility as he looks after the Academy and women's fixtures as well as the first team. "Not only is he a brilliant Football Secretary, his knowledge of the regulations is second to none. He organises the venues, all the officials, everything. Martin is very efficient and does a fantastic job. With the increase in workload and thus hours the Board decided it was unreasonable to expect Martin to continue to put in the time he did as a volunteer so he is now a very much "under" paid employee."
The interview turned to HUST and their relationship with UITC.
"The HFC board were of the view that it was totally inappropriate for a third party organisation over which we had no control or even any influence to be running our youth academy and our community arm. We tried to address it but were rebuffed out of hand."
"Given HFC had aspirations in terms of both youth and community, which as I said before would have been achieved through UITC had they been willing to work with the club so we then had to think about forming our own academy and community arm."
Was there a conflict of interest between UITC and HUST that affected HFC?
"In my opinion potentially there is - yes! We have three HUST nominated directors that sit on our board. Their principal responsibility is to ensure the interests of supporters are protected. In all other aspects they are HFC Directors and are bound by the normal conventions of boardroom confidentiality. Without that the business will not be efficient in that as individual directors we need the freedom to express views and opinions without the danger of our personal views, plans, suggestions or ideas being repeated outside the meeting. What we can not permit is for all discussions in the boardroom to be communicated to others who are not bound by the same conventions. I have set out clearly to Richard Tomkins and the Directors that they are free to report to the HUST Board on anything we discuss that they believe to be either damaging to the finances or interests of HFC or disadvantages the fans. Everything else is confidential without exception. Anything that needs to be put into the public domain will be in the form of an official statement.
"The principal concern in terms of a “conflict of interest” is that HUST have a Board Member who is also a Trustee of UITC. Therefore, given the circumstances, particularly in relation to the ongoing discussions with Pegasus there was a potential conflict in the event of HFC Board discussions were being made known to the HUST Board where a UITC Trustee was present.
"I raised this concern with Richard (Chairman of HUST) about this very issue but clearly it's not within our remit to stop anybody being a trustee of anything if they so wish."
What was the HUST Chairman's reaction to your concerns?
"Richard said he would look into it."
HUST have three directors on the main HFC board. How is that working?
"Let's start from the beginning. Firstly, all Directors are unpaid volunteers so there is not the drain on the clubs finances that was previously the case with HUFC when some Board members were well paid. However, for the club to function efficiently it takes a lot of each Directors free time and that affects family life. Each Board member has a specific area of responsibility and the three HUST nominees were recruited to take specific responsibilities. So, we have HFC Volunteers Development (Tony Taylor); Community Engagement (Andrew Graham); and Admin and HR (Mick Merrick). These are not advisory posts but working posts and thus it involves many hours of work every week to do justice to the responsibility.
"Now, If you are running any business then you appoint Directors to the board based on both ability and the particular expertise they bring to the business. In appointing Directors you need people who can add value and thus contribute to the overall success of the business."
Did HUST change their rules to allow Andrew Graham to become a HFC director?
"As I understand the position, initially there an issue in terms of identifying people with the appropriate experience and skills, indeed, I believe that prior to the recent appointments a second round of interviews were held in order to identify suitable candidates. So, it is clear that being limited to a restricted pool of resources i.e. the HUST membership, from which to select, can be problematic.
"We are very lucky with the three new appointees, for example, if you look at Andrew Graham he brings an awful lot to the table. Andrew has his own business, has a similar background to me in terms of police and military, (not sure whether that is good or bad!) he is a former advisor to the Home Office and in a very short period of time he has done a fantastic job for HFC in leading our community initiative. He's made all sorts of excellent contacts, is a very good "ideas" man, identifies opportunities and has been a great success in a very short period of time.
"Then we've got Mick Merrick who also runs his own business. He's joined us and taken over the admin and the HR and he is reviewing the current system and knocking it into shape, picking up on things that we should have done but haven't yet got round to. He has started implementing new procedures, reviewing our IT systems and is making a great contribution to HFC.
"And then there is Tony who is working closely with the HFC volunteers who, sadly, have been neglected to a lesser extent over the past couple of years. We need to do an awful lot more work on volunteers welfare and appreciation to ensure we retain each and everyone of them
because they are so vital to the club. Tony will also be looking at recruiting more volunteers because we can never have too many given there are always holidays and other absences to cover so it is an important role.
"I can understand why initially when HFC was being formed, given the history, that the principal of fan involvement was high on the list, and I don't have an issue with fan representation at Board level but my personal view is that one seat would have been more realistic given the limited pool that is available from which to recruit replacements.
"I am also concerned that under the current system we may lose the services of excellent people just because of the current policy of routine rotation.
"So, with the benefit of hindsight I would say that probably one HUST director on the board would have been sufficient to safeguard the interests of supporters particularly, given the fact that 50% of the shares in issue are ring fenced for the Trust.
"In any event all the current board are fans and as such are also concerned with safeguarding the future of the club. The Articles also include additional safeguards in relation to the sale of shares. I won't deliberately do anything detrimental to this football club and I'm sure, knowing them as I do, none of the current directors would either. Similarly, there is no possibility that any board member could "make" any personal gain out of the club or the ground and neither would we want to. We're here because we are former HUFC fans and now fans of Hereford FC.
"I can assure everyone there is no alternative motive. We put the hours in for the love of the club, we each buy an Exec club season ticket and some of us take a fair bit of abuse as well!
"But it's all worthwhile and I realise that every time a supporter says to me "thank you for what you are doing"