Hereford United: A Bad Week To Have A Bad Day

To talk about today being a bad day for Hereford United requires the perspective that this has been a bad year for Hereford United. Come to think of it, the teenies haven't exactly been a great decade for Hereford United, or their fans. Today is just another bad day, one of many that have come Hereford's way recently.

 Today the Football Association suspended Hereford United from all football activity, along with their majority shareholder, Alan McCarthy - or at least their previous majority shareholder, as once again ownership of the club appears confused  and the only thing that the club's fans can be sure of is the state of the club is not healthy.

 The Football Association have said that they understand the importance of football clubs to local communities and that they will be working hard to ensure that football returns to Hereford as soon as possible.

  "The FA understands the importance of football clubs to their local communities and will continue to work with all relevant parties to ensure senior football returns to Hereford at the earliest opportunity."

I am sure that statement will fill Hereford fans with joy as they contemplate the plight of their club. The 'relevant parties' haven't been doing a great job of looking after their club, and the Football Association haven't exactly had a great track record looking after grassroots football lately.

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Football for the many

When Downing Street briefed its intention to include a plan to give football fans more powers in the running of their clubs in Labour’s 2010 general election manifesto, the critics carped that this was another pie-in-the-sky proposal from a government that was gasping for breath. While the cynics suggested it was a craven attempt to curry favour with a section of the electorate who rarely makes it to the polling station, Gordon Brown’s commitment to football governance had far-reaching consequences.

Eager to nullify Labour’s unexpected lurch into the beautiful game, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats rushed out pledges of their own. After the formation of the coalition, there was even a commitment in the coalition agreement ‘to support the cooperative ownership of football clubs by their supporters’. For much of this parliament, there has been a strong cross-party consensus on the need for reform of a game that has slowly been eating itself. 

Continued at http://www.resultsbasedbusiness.co.uk/2012/03/readers-article-football-for-many.html 

Ode to a bygone era: Part one

Ode to a bygone era is a new 5 part series on Attempting Thought that looks at the beautiful game before 1902.

Part one focuses on the transition from an amateur based game to the professional one that we know today.