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Sunday, August 30, 2015

From The Archives - A Look Back To Last January


With the HUST AGM due in a couple of weeks and the continuing debate about its role with Hereford FC, BN looks back to January 30th this year and three interviews given to BBC Hereford and Worcester.
 

Supporters Drove Lonsdale And Agombar Out Of Business

In his interview with BBC Hereford and Worcester broadcast earlier this morning, former Hereford United chairman Andy Lonsdale claimed that supporters drove him and Tommy Agombar out of the business of owning the club.
Nothing that wasn't already known emerged during the interview and afterwards some supporters felt the H&W must have been short of material this morning to have bothered to run the interview.
"We put in a lot of money, a lot of money, in excess of £600K," said Lonsdale.
"We came into the club in May 2014 at the time when there was a winding up petition from Martin Foyle in place.
"Any business man who didn't care about the heritage of the club, didn't care about the fans, eventually put their club into liquidation and started again losing the history, losing the heritage, and losing the name of Hereford United football club.
"What we didn't take into account was the fans and the hidden agenda which we found out later on and has come out in social media since. 
"It's come out now that the phoenix club that they've set up now, Hereford FC, was actually formed in February 2014 before we even started talking to David Keyte. So they knew what they wanted to do.
"Basically they tried to drive us out of the club.
"The fans are the backbone of the club but at the end of the day there are financial obligations for the club.
"They were offered to buy the club but they decided not to. They decided to start again as a phoenix club and that was in place in February. They knew what they were going to do.
"If David Keyte didn't give them the club, they were just going to get it closed down. That's obvious now."
Lonsdale was asked what happened to drive them out.
"Basically social media, phone calls, text messages, where does it stop?  At the end of the day it's a football club.
"I can understand the fans anger but they were venting their anger on people that never caused the problem.
"You've got Alan McCarthy, Alan McCarthy's wife, never even been to Hereford in their life. They got hold of her facebook account and her twitter account and started tweeting her and sending her messages via facebook, absolutely disgraceful.
"Towards me, towards Connie, towards Elki, and towards Alan McCarthy. Disgraceful behaviour.
"I'll tell you what I think of the fans. The core of Hereford fans are nice people.
"There are keyboard warriors out there who are hell-bent on making people's lifes a misery. And if you look at social media now, there are even in-fighting now because they've got nowhere else to play."
Lonsdale was then asked about the abuse reportedly left on a fans answerphone.
"It wasn't one of us, it wasn't one of the staff that's all I'm going to say.
"I've got a good idea (who it was). No it wasn't me." 
 
 
WATSON RESPONDS TO LONSDALE
 
Martin Watson was interviewed on BBC Hereford and Worcester earlier today. The HUST vice-chairman was asked about an interview given by former chairmam Andy Lonsdale.
"It just seemed to be a bitter last rant from somebody whose continual lies were exposed time and time again," said Watson.
"They took over on May 28th. Within two weeks we were kicked out of the Conference because they refused to pay the bills after having told everybody they were going to pay everyone.
"They went back on what they said they were going to do almost immediately. 
"They said they were not after the leases until Herefordshire Council admitted they had a meeting and a request to transfer the leases to one of Tommy Agombar's other companies.
"We've talked for a long long time about a phoenix club. When the supporters trust was set up there was always a discussion.
"The simple fact was that during David Keyte's four year reign the club lost £1.5M.
"There was a company on paper but nothing else was set up and that company could have been used for anything.
"If they had come in and paid the bills like they said they would, it would have carried on fine. There was never any problem with that.
"We kept the same line all the way through. We gave them chance after chance after chance and they lied to the fans, they lied to the players, they lied to the staff, they lied to the Council, they lied to you on Hereford and Worcester, they lied to the press, they lied to everybody, they did it time and time again.
"Andy Lonsdale threatened me personally.
"He's claiming abuse and he kept on saying he would go to the police about it but the police appear to have received no reports.
"He seems to be making up a history that doesn't exist.
"You can't stop hundreds of people commenting on things and you will get one or two at the extremes and that's always the case.
"We've repeatedly stated that none of this abuse is done in our (HUST) name. We've repeatedly stated that."
As for the future?
"We've got to open negotiations with the Council and secure the ground and look to build towards next season. That's going to be done with the fans backing."
Have you got anything to say to Lonsdale and Agombar?
"There's nothing left to say to them. They came here and treated the club and the fans appallingly and the players and the staff.
"The vast majority of people are glad to see the back of them and from the comments H&W are receiving today it seems that people are quite disappointed that he's been given air-time today." 
 
 
KEYTE BREAKS HIS SILENCE
 
By Organic Bull


Former Hereford United chairman David Keyte spoke to BBC Hereford and Worcester this afternoon. He says he was prompted to do so after seeing quotes from HUST vice-chairman Martin Watson on Bulls News earlier today.

"Thank you for giving me a bit of airtime, as you know you and I could talk for three hours on this subject," Keyte told Trevor Owens.

"I've kept my own counsel for the last eight or nine months but there's been an awful lot of things said, usually at my expense, that have just sort of supported these various agendas which different factions have worked on to their own ends.

"I didn't hear the interview this morning but I tend to read Bulls News for my sins and I noticed the quote from Martin that said that the club had lost £1.5M in my four years which is quite frankly absolute nonsense.

"I just felt this was the one thing which would start me getting my two penny-worth into all this.

"The first year in my tenure we made a profit of £431K. If you recall we bought back the leases and wrote off the £1M debt to the Richardson Brothers which gave us a net profit of £431K end of year.

"The next year was the year we were relegated from the Football League and we chased that a bit, we tried to avoid it and we ran up a loss of about £400K.

"And then in our first year in the Conference we had a similar high £400K loss. Technically the final year of my four years I don't think anybody to this day has closed the accounts off because we finished before the year end.

"But if you say a similar £400K or so, the loss in the four years was less than £1M and the directors at the time funded that £1M out of their own personal money."
Keyte was then asked if he regretted not selling to the Supporters Trust.

"I didn't have the option, they never came back.

"We met the supporters trust group which significently did not include Chris Williams, their chairman, who was unavailable. But Martin and four or five other people came along. 

"We met. We being the board of directors, Dave Preedy, Bob Pritchard, Colin Addison and we listened and we heard their offer of £1 which you might appreciate from a personal point of view for all of us was quite close to insulting.

"We asked the question which you would expect in a business meeting proof of funding, as we were looking for £300K to pay immediate debts, which they couldn't supply.

"We wanted to know who would do the due diligence for them, bearing in mind they were a community at that time of about 400 members. We needed some idea of who would come in and do due diligence and they couldn't give us an answer to that."
Owens then pointed out that the claim always was that you (Keyte) would not let them see the books.

"David Keyte refused to let HUST see the books, David Keyte murdered our club. The facts are we left that meeting and the next day Martin Watson put out an agreed statement, which I had agreed - he had been good enough to share it with me, which said 'it was an amicable meeting and that they had left to seek advice from Supporters Direct'.

"And it was on these very topics of how do we accommodate due diligence in a private limited company when we are trying to talk for four hundred members and how do we give proof of funding when we have about £5K in the bank but we think through pledges we could get to whatever money they thought they could.

"I've read since from Chris William's quote that £220K was offered. Never, ever offered in that meeting. He wasn't there and then they never came back.

"So we were left with two outside investors to choose between and rightly or wrongly we went with Agombar.

"I'm not going to speak for the last period that he was involved and Lonsdale because quite frankly it was shocking.

"But we had sold having decided as a board we could go no further. Personal finances. We could take it no further. We needed to find outside investment which we were publicly saying for the last six months of our tenure. So let's clear that one up for once and for all."
Owens suggested that the setting up of a phoenix club was a sensible move.
"You could call it a sensible move. This Hereford FC was opened on April 1st 2014 by two people named as directors, John Hale and Chris Williams.
"When it became clear that Agombar was going to fail, they started to introduce that publicly as the saviour. It had been opened on April 1st when a lot of people were still trying to fundraise for the old club.
"It will all be opinions won't it. But as I speak now there will be half of Hereford saying let's not listen to him he killed our club. But the facts are that there are some interesting twists of personalities.
"How could the HUST be making independent decisions on behalf of their members when their chairman Chris Williams was already set up as a director of Hereford FC. 
"How can HUST make independent decisions rather than just go with there's no other choice but to go in with these mysterious benefactors who could have, probably could have come forward and saved the 90 year old club at no more, lots of figures have been banded about Trevor, but I know for a fact that Andrew Green, the Agombar accountant, and Lonsdale himself were arguing between whether it could be £700K or £750K."
Finally Owens asked Keyte whether he regretted selling to Agombar given 'you said it's not the vicar coming to buy the football club' and it was obvious he wasn't going to pass the FA's fit and proper person test.

"Well it was more about the case that the previous directors had decided to call it a day and he was the only person that came forward."