Ahead of a FA Cup game against Leicester in December 1999, Hereford United manager Graham Turner spoke to the Telegraph.
THE talk was of football, momentous matches,
heroic deeds and new dreams, rather than financial crises, sponsorship
deals and relocation. Graham Turner was a man reborn.
He was
liberated to concentrate on his players, organise the coaching and plot
the FA Cup demise of Leicester City on Saturday, secure in the knowledge
that other matters could, if only temporarily, be put to one side.
Turner,
who once managed Aston Villa, then rebuilt Wolverhampton Wanderers, is
now all but lost to mainstream football, yet his responsibilities have
multiplied. He runs Conference club Hereford United - as chairman,
director of football, coach, major shareholder and much more besides.
When
Hereford were relegated from the League three seasons ago, Turner felt
obliged to stay, to share the blame and shoulder the burden of reviving
the club. That commitment became a crusade and he emerged from the
boardroom shake-up with full control.
His hands-on approach to
fund-raising even embraced an auction. The club gladly accommodated the
servicing and parking demands of the Network Q Rally of Great Britain,
though Turner had trouble convincing a jobsworth he really did work at
Edgar Street and was entitled to penetrate the security cordon.
The
car parks will be filled by football folk on Saturday, when Hereford
meet the Premiership club in a third-round tie, invoking memories of
their fabled victory against Newcastle United, of Radford, of pitch
invasions and all, 28 seasons ago.
"It's just what we needed,"
said Turner, 52. "I'm particularly pleased for the supporters because
they've stuck with us through hard times. They've seen us relegated,
then have to sell a lot of our better players to survive.
"People
are talking about football again, there's excitement and anticipation.
The club has a great tradition of cup football. Everyone remembers the
Newcastle match but the club were close to beating Manchester United in
1990, and that might have cost Alex Ferguson his job. Four years ago
Tottenham scraped a draw here."
This tie is transparently what
Turner needed, too. Receipts from a crowd of more than 8,000, and the
BBC's fee for Match of the Day highlights will earn the club £60,000.
This on top of the £75,000 Sky paid for live coverage of their match
against Hartlepool in the previous round.
Hereford are £1.3 million in debt and raised £140,000 last season through the sale of five players.
Turner said: "It means we can pick and choose when we sell and I can enjoy the football side.
"Talking to bank managers and sponsors is the hard part of the job. Coaching, working with the players, is a joy."
He
is convinced full-time professional playing staff are imperative if the
club are to prosper, but his part-timers have made crucial
contributions to the cup run. Leroy May, a 'strippagram' of some repute,
and Robin Elmes, a languages and PE teacher, have scored decisive
goals, while Mark Jones, a farm manager and brother of the Southampton
goalkeeper, Paul, has made important saves.
Turner had to ask
Elmes's headmaster to give the striker time off school to practise set
plays and acknowledges that his players will need all the preparation
they can muster against a team unlikely to consider themselves too
precious for this trip beyond League bounds.
"I could have chosen
easier Premiership opponents," Turner said. "But Martin O'Neill and
players like Matt Elliott and Gerry Taggart know what to expect."