There's an article in the Daily Mail about Hereford FC. It was written by Oliver Holt
Hereford FC are rising like a phoenix from the ashes as Bulls fans rally to save their club... and Edgar Street
- Edgar Street lies untouched since Hereford United were wound up in the High Court on December 19
- The home changing room lay undisturbed from the moment the club ceased to exist
- Edgar Street is a beautiful stadium still. It is rundown and ragged but its nobility has survived
- Four businessmen pledged £50,000 each to finance the birth of a new ‘phoenix’ club at Edgar Street, to be known as Hereford FC
- They deserve praise. Edgar Street is worth saving. It’s part of our cultural heritage
It was still
Christmas at Edgar Street last week. Every day since December 19 has
been like Christmas here. That was the day that Hereford United were
wound up in the High Court in London. That was the day that time stood
still. That was the day that Edgar Street was entombed.
So
in Addison’s Bar, overlooking the pitch, nine mince pies sat on a foil
tray next to the beer pumps. Golden letters saying ‘Happy Christmas’
hung askew and forlorn from a wall. An artificial Christmas tree had
fallen on the floor and been left on its side.
There
was a smell of damp. A Star Wars slot machine stood in one corner. Its
lights were out. In the gloom, it was still possible to make out
pictures of Ronnie Radford and Ricky George, heroes of Hereford’s famous
1972 FA Cup third round replay win over Newcastle, Edgar Street’s
finest hour.
A sign dominated the room. ‘Our Greatest Glory Lies Not in Never Having Fallen but in Rising When we Fall,’ it said.
The
home changing room felt like a crime scene. It, too, lay undisturbed
from the moment the club ceased to exist. Dirty kit worn by the players
in the club’s final training session was strewn all over the floor.
Used
towels were crumpled on benches. A football nestled sadly against a
wall in the showers. A can of deodorant lay beneath one player’s peg,
next to a discarded copy of How Not to be a Football Millionaire, Keith Gillespie’s memoir of profligacy and loss.
During
the final days of Hereford United, some of the players slept here on
pull-out beds, not through any great sense of solidarity but because it
was more cheerful than the B&B around the corner that was the best
alternative.
Edgar
Street is a beautiful stadium still, a ground full of character and
beauty with its two-tier stands and its curving terraces. It is rundown
and ragged but its nobility has survived.
The
grass has been mown by Herefordshire Council a couple of times but long
barren patches criss-cross the pitch now, tell-tale signs of the
drainage pipes that lie beneath. One of them runs across the spot, 35
yards out, from where Radford hit his famous screamer in ’72. ‘This is
the home of the Bulls,’ a banner says.
But
out of this vision of Edgar Street as football’s Mary Celeste comes
another remarkable story of the refusal of English football fans to let
their clubs die.
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A refreshment bar sits in a corner of the ground, unused for almost five months
At
the end of a week when Bournemouth, a club that was ‘48 hours from
oblivion’ less than seven years ago, was promoted to the Premier League,
Edgar Street’s days as a tomb are over. Supporters have begun to roll
away the stone. Hereford United are no more. That is true. The club’s
demise was a familiar football story of misfortune and mismanagement
that ended in the Kafkaesque nightmare of powerlessness in the face of
mysterious owners whose intentions were unclear and who spoke of
salvation as they led the club to destruction.
In
the end, the most recent face of the ownership, Andy Lonsdale, who had
promised to invest £1 million, didn’t even make it to the High Court to
contest the final winding-up petition last December. He got stuck in
traffic, he said, and the club, which had been expelled from the
Football Conference six months earlier and deposited in the Southern
League, went out of business.
But
a football ground inspires fierce loyalties in supporters. For many of
us, it is the stadium that holds the essence of a club. It is the
stadium that is the keeper of the club’s memories and the place that
ensures continuity. The owners killed Hereford United but they could not
destroy Edgar Street. The supporters knew Hereford United was being
strangled slowly anyway. By then it was just a name. So when the end
came on December 19, a group of fans headed straight for the stadium to
try to stop creditors desecrating the stadium further. West Mercia
police were called. The shutters came down.
But
as long as the stadium was there, as long as it had not been razed to
the ground or swallowed up by development, there was always hope of a
rebirth. Then, some weeks ago, four businessmen who are known to be
lifelong Hereford fans, pledged £50,000 each to finance the birth of a
new ‘phoenix’ club at Edgar Street, to be known as Hereford FC.
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| Rubbish Dumped Behind The Blackfriars Stand - BN Picture |
Last
week, groups of volunteers cleared away that tray of mince pies and
started the job of trying to make Edgar Street fit for purpose again.
Workmen began removing asbestos from roofing areas of the main stand
where it had been disturbed. Plans were being made to relay the pitch
and repair the emergency lighting that is essential for a safety
certificate. Life came flooding back in.
‘To
the Bulls fans who rolled sleeves up and transformed my beloved Edgar
Street for Hereford FC today,’ the new club’s Operations Director, Ken
Kinnersley, wrote on Twitter, ‘I love you all!’
They
deserve that kind of praise. Edgar Street is worth saving. It’s part of
our cultural heritage. Apart from anything else that has happened here,
Radford’s goal 43 years ago, perhaps more than any other, will always
encapsulate the romance of the FA Cup and the depth of the supporting
culture in our country.
It
seems right that a Supporters’ Trust will have a say in the running of
the new club. Representatives of Hereford FC travelled to Wembley last
week to show their business plan to the Football Association. They will
be informed next week which level of the pyramid they will be allowed to
play in.
The
usual rule is that clubs begins their new existence two divisions below
the rung where the old existence ended. If that is confirmed later this
month, Hereford FC will begin life next season in the Midland Football
League, the ninth tier of English football.
Suddenly,
optimism is everywhere. Chris Ammonds, Hereford FC’s Commercial and
Office Manager, says the club have already sold 580 season tickets for
2015-16, more than for many years. More than 70 local businesses have
contacted him to register an interest in helping or in arranging
sponsorship deals. Some have offered to send staff to speed the
clear-up.
The
non-league football community is standing by Hereford FC. The first
match at Edgar Street will be a pre-season friendly against FC United of
Manchester, a club whose rise and rise embodies the power of fans’
dreams, on July 11th.
The
club has a new crest, too. Hereford FC is written above the picture of a
bull that was on the old crest. Below the bull is a new message.
‘United Forever’, it says.
