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Next Game: Banbury Away On Friday March 29th Kick-Off 3.00pm

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Wasn't Me Guv

 
Andy Munsley looks back on the surprise appearances yesterday:
 
A day after the Official Receiver tells the Hereford Times that there are over 900 creditors of Hereford United, two of the chief protagonists in the demise of the club chose to break their silence over their actions.
 
Often the words 'trading insolvently' have been bounced around social media about Hereford United in the last two years. When David Keyte decided to stop covering his losses in late 2013 the club was effectively trading insolvently, unable to pay the ongoing bills, yet the company continued to trade. Repeated promises of investment coming 'soon' had seen wage payments occasionally delayed for more than a year before that, but the promises became more and more fragile as the belief amongst the fans in the club's chief shareholder fell away.
 
Then in August 2014, the Insolvency Practitioner declared the club dead and, more importantly, that no-one in their right mind would invest in it. A professional had given his advice - the club was finished. Yet Andy Lonsdale, initially under the guise of Alan McCarthy's ownership, continued to trade the business for four further months on even more broken promises of investment. A quick count up of the promises - including Tommy Agombar's Seven Million Pounds and Lonsdale's Five Million Pound supposed credit line claimed to the Court - suggest that there were close to Twenty Million Pounds of money in total supposedly available to Hereford United at various points of the last eight months. Barely a penny actually appeared.
 
Few believe Lonsdale's claim that he and Agombar put in over £600,000. The alleged investment figure fluctuated wildly, both up and down, while the pair were in charge and there is little evidence of that level of investment looking at the run down stadium and the Council claim that both terrace ends are not fit for purpose, while there are only 'tables and chairs' for the Official Reciever to sell off.
 
Friday's surfacing of two of the recent owners of Hereford United appears to be little more than an attempt to confuse the situation - to deflect the flak about to come from the Official Reciever as to whom is to blame for the collapse and mis-management of the club.
 
And I for one hope the Official Receiver sees through the chaff and hands the full quartet of shoddy owners in the past months their deserved punishment.