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Friday, January 30, 2015

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."