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| Pablo Haysham has been talking about his time at Hereford |
Former Hereford player Pablo Haysham has been talking about his time at Edgar Street - admitting he cried when he left the club and praising manager Peter Beadle.
The attacking-minded player scored in his debut in the club's first-ever league match, a 4-1 win over Dunkirk in 2015, and went on to be a huge part of the three championships in the club's first three seasons.
In 2018, after having scored 52 goals in 142 appearances, the Bulls' promotion to the National League North was part of the reason behind his decision to leave and join Salisbury - but he regrets not joining Weymouth.
Appearing on Oxfordshire non-league football podcast Pick That Out, Haysham said: "The travelling was going to be mental.
"Me and Millsy said listen, it's been brilliant but we're going to step away."
He ended up in tears after leaving what had been an unbelievable three years at Hereford which he said he had been fortunate to be part of.
Going back to the start though, Haysham said Peter Beadle had initially gone for marksman John Mills.
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| John Mills picking up one of his many man of the match awards |
So he signed for Hereford in 2015 alongside Mills, with the pair racking up 70 goals between them at Step 4 Didcot prior to moving to the pheonix club.
He said when they joined Hereford it had been a "difficult time for the club and I think it got mismanaged a lot and people took the p*ss".
"It ended up going completely dead," he said, but added his three years were brilliant.
He admitted the first campaign didn't start well, only winning two of the first six Midland Football League games. But then came a 7-2 win at Heanor at the start of September, kickstarting a 27-game winning run before a 1-1 draw at Alvechurch in the MFL cup.
He said the expectation was that "you go and win every game" but that never changed, even when the club earned promotion.
"If you don't win, that's a failure," he said.
Haysham admitted that after an early 5-4 defeat at home to Coleshill in the league, where he said the players were booed off the pitch, he thought Jimmy Oates would leave the club.
But he said he went on to be one of the club's best players before signing a pro contract at Exeter. He has since returned to Australia.
Haysham also talked about the FA Vase semi-final against Salisbury, and the highlight of his playing career being the subsequent Wembley final. On that day, which saw Rob Purdie open the scoring with a sensational goal, he said the noise of the 20,000 Hereford fans was incredible.
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| Hereford fans at Wembley in May 2016 |
He also talked through the game and, how after 20 minutes, the game switched and the Bulls went on to be beaten 4-1 by Morpeth.
Despite that day at Wembley, Haysham said Beadle was the best manager he had ever played for and his standards were "through the roof".
He said: "His best things were his standards were so high, he was brilliant at that, and it matched what we needed to be. That club, if you didn't win every game, it was a disappointment.
"If we got one thing wrong, he'd be on us, and it worked. That was the mentality.
"That and the way he recruited, the type of players he got in. We had such a good changing room."
He also said from the outside looking in, the decision to sack Beadle appeared "hasty" after three consecutive promotions and an FA Vase final. Beadle was sacked just nine competitive games into the 2018/19 season after a 3-1 loss against Westfields in the county cup. The club were 12th in the National League North.
Throughout the podcast, which is more than 90 minutes long, there was also lots of praise for Hereford fans and Haysham said current Bulls boss Paul Caddis comes across well as a manager and things appear to be going in the right direction.
You can listen to the full podcast where Haysham also talks about his time at Oxford City and Abingdon United on Spotify or Apple Music.