From the Archive: The death & rebirth of football in Hereford

It's been almost a decade since Hereford United were mismanaged into oblivion. Here's the story, as published shortly after the final confirmation of the club's death was received.

When the end finally comes, it is usually the mundanity of that is the most striking thing of all. At the High Court in London, five days before Christmas and with most “football people” focusing their attention on the forthcoming rush of holiday fixtures, Hereford United Football Club passed quietly into the night, another of the English game’s relative footnotes cast asunder shifted to its “History” section.

Yet the story of Hereford United and their demise doesn’t end with the scratching of a judge’s signature on a document in a hushed courtroom. When it comes to football clubs, these stories seldom do. Hereford United Football Club may be no more, but football in this particular town will continue, under a subtly different name. Enter stage left, Hereford FC.

The demise of Hereford United came about at considerable speed, and where exactly this story even begins may be open to question. If we are to trace the roots of the sequence of events that ended in the High Court a couple of months ago, though, we should probably begin in June 2010 with the arrival of local businessman David Keyte as the club’s chairman.

At the end of the following season, the team finished one place and three points above the League Two relegation places, a position not helped when it was deducted three points by the Football League for fielding an ineligible player, Rob Purdie, in a match. The following season, however, the club’s luck began its slow, inexorable process of running out, and it was relegated back to the Football Conference.