For today's look back article about the summer of 2014, a Hereford supporter from far away looks at the events.
This Isn't About Football Anymore
Distant Bulls fan Andy H has watched the current situation unfold from 3,000 miles away:
I live more than 3,000 miles
away from Edgar Street, the home of Hereford United. Having not lived in
Hereford for more than 20 years, I am used to keeping up with all news
Bulls related from afar via an unofficial site, a fans forum and an
official site and following the "action" on the BBC website. My US
neighbours have as little an idea of where Hereford is as my old ones in
London. Telling anyone who I support generally draws a blank expression
and the question, what league do they play in? Some also resort to
facetiousness - a Norwegian friend began to refer to Hereford United as
Herefordshire International. But, for me and my friends, that has become
a term of endearment for the club we support.
In writing this, I have spent
some time pondering why the events at Hereford, particularly over the
last 6 months, have troubled me so much. Although I lived in Hereford
for 18 years, after school I moved away. All my friends did the same and
aside from family, the club is the only genuine link I have to the
place where I grew up. I have had the opportunity to introduce my nephew
to the beautiful game at Edgar Street (2-1 loss at home to Port Vale,
not that beautiful) and I want to be able to do the same with my kids.
Following Hereford has been a struggle this past season, even from a
distance. And although financial problems had been rumoured for a while,
what has happened recently could and should have been avoided.
Financial problems at Hereford
are nothing new. Graham Turner managed to steady a sinking ship and
then brought some great players and football to Edgar Street. He left in
2010 with the football side in reasonable shape (okay, we had been
relegated from League 1 the prior season, but having spent years in the
Conference, being in the Football League was satisfying enough). The
facilities on the other hand, and to put it politely, could have done
with some modernization, although I still lament the passing of the
Meadow End trainer.
David Keyte took over as
Chairman and it's impossible to discuss the current plight without
mentioning Mr. Keyte, since we find ourselves in this position due to
events that occurred under his tenure. During the 2013/14 season we
were apparently losing 30,000 per month. This came to light around
halfway through the season. At the time I thought that Mr. Keyte, a
local gentleman and apparent long term supporter, would come good on the
promise to not let the club go under on his watch. By that I assumed
that the necessary cash would be found to keep the club afloat for the
season. It transpired that instead Mr. Keyte had actually stopped paying
staff and players. It was no surprise then that performance on the
pitch deteriorated and left Hereford needing little short of a miracle
on the last day of the season to escape relegation from the Conference
(which, incidentally, would have been the second relegation of Mr.
Keyte's tenure). I was resigned to the fact that we would be going down,
but the stars aligned and in the last five minutes of the season both
our result and that of Chester went our way and we stayed up. The
feeling of elation was as good as any I have experienced following the
club. With Conference status secure, and with Mr. Keyte looking for a
buyer I thought things may be looking up.
Without going into the details
of quite why we were losing so much money suffice it to say that Mr.
Keyte was no longer prepared to bankroll the club. With this the case, I
believed that the way forward was through a Hereford United Supporters
Trust (HUST) takeover. HUST began asking for pledges in order to offer
Mr. Keyte a nominal amount for the club with the wiping out of directors
loans and the intention of paying off football related creditors. Mr.
Keyte did not let them look at the books, and indicated instead that
there were other interested parties, which were better deals for the
board. Towards the end of May it was announced that investors were
preparing to put cash into the club, but there was some secrecy as to
who exactly they were. In June, it was announced that Tommy Agombar was
the purchaser. It quickly surfaced that he had an unspent criminal
conviction and may not pass the FA's fit and proper test.
Given the previous regime's
later opaqueness, I was skeptical of his sound bites but was at least
prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had that benefit
until it became clear that he was not going to pay off football
creditors to satisfy the Football Conference so that we could take our
place for next season. There was some bluster from Mr. Agombar about
debts being four times what he thought they were when he took over. But
unless I am very much mistaken the majority of debt is in the form of
loans from previous directors, which I assume would have been disclosed
during the takeover due diligence. Mr. Agombar also refused to pay a
bond to the Conference for the season. Understandably, the Conference
want to make sure that any club in their leagues can complete the
season. Since Hereford looked like a basket case they asked for a bond,
refundable at the end of the season (so opportunity cost, the interest
lost on the bond, not the bond itself) Since football debts were not
settled or the bond posted, Hereford were then demoted 2 further
divisions to the Southern League. On relegations, Mr. Agombar 2 Mr.
Keyte 1.
Mr. Agombar had stated on
numerous occasions he is "a football man". I am still not really sure
what this means, but take it that he is more interested in the football
than the business side. But, If you were in it for the football,
wouldn't you want that football to be played at the highest level
possible? Wouldn't you also want to engage your fan base?
Hypothetically, if you didn't have the cash to satisfy the Conference,
but still wanted to put out a decent side in the Southern League,
wouldn't there have been at least one player signed by the start of
July? Unless of course the motive for taking over the club was not
football related.
It transpired that very soon
after taking over the club Mr. Agombar had asked the council (who are
the clubs landlords) if he could move the ground's leases to a holding
company of his own rather than keep them with the club's company. The
leases had been secured by Mr. Keyte with some fanfare. They represent
the clubs only real asset and through development would hopefully bring
either a lump sum or a future revenue stream to the club, depending on
how the land was developed. Why, if you main interest is the football,
try and move the leases away from the club?
Whilst all this has been
happening on the non playing side, on the football side there was an
initial flurry of reports in the local paper, the Hereford Times. Mark
Ellis, football "consultant", who had a extremely impressive CV
(seemingly coaching jobs at a host of Premier League, La Liga and
Championship clubs) for someone working at what by now was a Southern
League club, indicted that any new team was going to storm the league.
But he suggested that the manager's job was too big for Peter Beadle,
who had engineered Hereford's relegation escape at the end of last
season. Peter was held in extremely high regard by supporters and such
comments were received with disbelief. Mr. Ellis has remained very quiet
ever since. Rather like his employer in fact. In the last 3 weeks,
there have been two updates on the official Hereford United website
(since the previous media officer, who had gone unpaid for months,
quit). We have learnt that we are in the Southern League. We have also
learnt that we will play a friendly against a Help4Heroes side. This
match seems like a deeply cynical ploy given that supporters are rightly
upset at what is going on at the club, but do not want to be seen to be
snubbing a worthwhile cause and because it may be used by the club
against the supporters. So, as an exile, I am learning nothing from the
club directly anymore. What a strange way to run a consumer oriented
business.
Instead I have been turning to
the excellent Bulls News and a fans forum (Bulls Banter) for updates.
But wait a minute, there have been some updates from the club on the
fans forum! Although to an outsider, insulated from the barmy goings on
at Hereford, this is likely to be quite confusing. Two users, whose
identities were checked by the forum admin, posted suggesting that they
wanted to set the record straight and answer questions about the club.
The users were Andy Lonsdale, who turned out to be the President of
Bedfont and Feltham FC and Joel Nathan, CEO of Grays Athletic, both
friends of Mr. Agombar. Given the understandably combustible nature of a
fans forum, not least when there is no official information coming out
of the club, and the inability of either individual to answer anything
but the most rudimentary questions, forum admin decided that both should
be banned. Rather than describing fans as "fools" and "idiots", Mr.
Lonsdale and Mr. Nathan may have been better served addressing fans
genuine concerns (most pressingly, why have the creditors not been
paid?!). At best, it strikes me as extremely odd that the method that
the club chooses to use to engage fans is an online fans forum, and even
odder that their choice of mouthpiece is officials from other clubs.
So, where are we now? HUST
have just asked members to vote to see whether they want a boycott of
Hereford United until creditors are paid. I will vote "yes". I will be
home in August. So I will miss my annual visit to Edgar Street. Putting
aside that communication does not appear to be the new owners strongest
suit, I keep asking myself if Mr. Agombar really is a football man,
where are the signings, where is the manager, where are the season
ticket prices, and where is your engagement of the fans and the local
community? As the previous 1,000+ words testify, this isn't about
football anymore, at least not in the way that I understand it. Yes,
football is a business, but if you persistently break promises and
alienate your fan base you will run the club into the ground. Perhaps
that is the crux. Clearly Edgar Street is a valuable piece of
development land. The lease situation with the council is complex and
appears to depend on whether the club continues to function in its
current form. The club is still facing a winding up petition (perverse
that this almost the least of my concerns!) and a CVA (administration)
is also being explored. Neither option looks good for creditors
including hard working former staff and, presumably, former directors
who extended loans to the club.
At this juncture, I have
severe doubts as to whether a ball will be kicked competitively at Edgar
Street this season. Would things have been different if Mr. Keyte had
been prepared to talk to HUST? I doubt that creditors would have been
treated as shabbily as they have been and there would not have been a
mass exodus of loyal staff from the club. We may also have been able to
mend bridges with last year's team and some of the emerging youth
teamers who have a very bright future. We would be looking forward to
pre-season matches against local clubs, rather than local clubs spurning
invitations to play due to the state of the club.
Realistically, there may still
have had to have been a liquidation of the club or a CVA, but that is
no worse a situation than we find ourselves in now - at least local fans
who care deeply about the club would be in charge of our destiny,
rather than a board of directors that appears to change almost weekly
and that have no links to the local community. It begs the question, how
has the deal with Mr. Agombar been better for the previous board
exactly, since it is not working out too well for the club?
But amongst all the gloom
there are beacons of light. There are continual words of encouragement
from supporters of clubs such as Chester and Wrexham, who have had
similar problems to Hereford and fought through them successfully. Kevin
Rye of Supporters Direct is actively involved, local councilor Jim
Kenyon and MPs Jesse Norman and Bill Wiggins are on the case. HUST is
also backing a consortium of local businessmen who are looking to pick
up the pieces. Unless the situation evolves rapidly and there is either a
about change in the way Mr. Agombar operates, or he decides to walk, I
will not visit Edgar Street this year on my return home.
But with the groundswell of
local (and more far flung) support for the club I am hopefully that by
this time next year, and in whatever league, I will get to see the
Whites play again.