Keyte Praises Graham Turner

In the second part of David Keyte's interview with Matt Healey for Your Herefordshire, posted last Sunday, 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."

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."

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."

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.

"Graham was football through and through. He had a good understanding and we spoke about the leases at the ground which the club didn't hold and the Richardsons Developers had the leases. And that was probably one of the early thoughts I had, a supporter from the outside looking in. When you walked past the old social club which I'd been in before as a youngster which was now full of pigeon muck when you opened the door. It was the off-field things which I felt I could improve upon. And the football, fingers crossed , looked after itself. But in truth, we never replaced Graham Turner as a football manager and that can drive your finances. Relegation from the Football League is enormous, I think  in many ways on a par with relegation from the Premier League. Huge respect for Graham Turner as a football manager.”

*Part 3 will be uploaded around 6pm tonight. The discussion is about the leases and the Starlite Rooms.