MAXBULL wrote:

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Exactly! Why do you now know about our plight, but I know nothing of yours?

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 Why do we know about your plight? Because we saw all your begging bowls at our home game with you last season, because you got kicked out of the league we are in, because you are partly responsible for the reprieve of the Princes Caravan Park lot. Oh, and because we take an interest.

Why do you know nothing about ours? Maybe it's because we all pulled together as a club, stopped blaming those who were to blame, and got on with it. We now live within our means and all that changed long before you would have ever heard of Welling United. Maybe because you were all Billy Big Bulls at the time and weren't interested in the leagues below yours. Either way it's a maybe, only one person truly knows the reason for your ignorance.

Stoddy wrote:

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MAXBULL wrote:

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Exactly! Why do you now know about our plight, but I know nothing of yours?

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 Why do we know about your plight? Because we saw all your begging bowls at our home game with you last season, because you got kicked out of the league we are in, because you are partly responsible for the reprieve of the Princes Caravan Park lot. Oh, and because we take an interest.

 

Why do you know nothing about ours? Maybe it's because we all pulled together as a club, stopped blaming those who were to blame, and got on with it. We now live within our means and all that changed long before you would have ever heard of Welling United. Maybe because you were all Billy Big Bulls at the time and weren't interested in the leagues below yours. Either way it's a maybe, only one person truly knows the reason for your ignorance.

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Doesn't help that Hereford was one of the two grounds we went to last season where a representative of officialdom observed in a none too friendly tone 'Have you never been to a game of football before' when one of our number was doing something that is fairly normal in non-league football but apparently not permitted in that ground.

The other club had also been in the Conference before and there are plenty of us who were at both grounds first time round.

Contrary to what you may believe from this thread, we aren't a naturally chippy lot towards most other clubs. However there is a significant percentage of this league and its officials who appear to treat us as an inconvenient turd on their shoe. Yes, we are over achieving for what we have available, but we had to be good to get in this league. Most of those lacking in respect only had to be abject ****e to get in! 

Sorry if Hereford supporters are now being treated as a similar turd by their owner but it just feels like another bunch of people treating us as an inconvenience.

I get the concept of what the Hereford fan's are trying to achieve and welcome the the fact that they have informed us of their intention and reiterating that it is a peaceful protest, however it will only work if it get mentioned by the TV commentators, personally I think it might get about 30-seconds to a minute air time if that, in reality the local papers will probably pick up on it more than BT Sports.

I personally do not think it will detract from our big night, as BT will probably need to focus on the managers and introducing the squad etc to the wider audience who have never seen us before, I am also convinced once the game starts all camera's will be on the game and at half time the pundits will talking about the Key moments of the game not a crowd protest - I never seen a pundits team talk about the crowd issues in length except for things like Bradford and Hillsborough and the like.

If anything it could give Welling United and Kidderminster free publicity if it reported by the national papers as first game in history to have three set's of supporters at a match. (which I am not sure it is).

-- Edited by morph on Friday 3rd of October 2014 10:36:33 PM

MAXBULL wrote:

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I think you lot need to take a look at the Kiddy forum and when you've done that, take a good hard look at yourselves.

See you all at Kiddy good luck for the season.

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Why's that then? because I don't care as much about Hereford as I do my club. Sorry. I support Welling.

I wish you all the best, and I have sympathy for Hereford unlike Salisbury, as I mentioned earlier, but I don't accept or agree that what you are doing effectively invading someone else's moment of limelight is right. I don't want or need to read the Kidderminster or Hereford forums to feel that.

I'm not being disrespectful here, but we will bring more than you - no question about it.

From a safety point of view putting you in the seats and us on the terrace is the best idea.

Last season I went to watch Hereford vs Lincoln, and the Hereford supporters we tucked away in the tiniest block of seats at Sincil Bank you ever did see; I didn't then throw my toys out the pram just incase we turned up with 500.

Wednesday is a 'thank you' to Kidderminster and the chance to gain some much needed national publicity - but the main point of the evening will be the football, not us, so why don't you put yourself in our shoes?

Imagine boycotting the football team you've supported since you were only a little lad, doing so because of the non-payment of football creditors, ex-employees and local companies. Imagine being owned by a bunch of Essex crooks, the ex-majority shareholder having been locked up for 7 years for hijacking lorries. Imagine a person being banned under the FA's ODT but still running your club. Imagine being lied to at every statement, email or phone call. Imagine one of your most loyal supporters standing on the phone and getting constant abuse for 5 minutes of the club chairman and acting secretary. Imagine being kicked out of the conference, simply because 'it was a business decision'. Imagine having half your ground condemned and the capacity drop by 4/5ths. Imagine the FA and Southern League turning their backs on you. Imagine the Southern League letting you into their league with debts to football creditors and a capacity significantly below what is stated as the minimum capacity in their rules.

Just imagine that and then think twice about complaining that we're stealing your night.

Kevin wrote:

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imagine picking any other game that wasn't on TV. Imagine claiming you aren't trying to steal the limelight when you clearly are.

Imagine your club had its one moment in the limelight after never having been on TV before. Imagine your club had nearly gone under a few years back and 42 people managed to find 64k in the space of just a few weeks to ensure its survival. Imagine a part-time club in a majority full-time division punching massively above our weight due to excellent management and player performance in recent years. Imagine you were a player really looking forward to the publicity, had all your friends and family attending or watching on TV, and the headlines for the evening weren't your winning goal, or your MOTM performance, but that of some fans not even involved in the game turning their back on it.

Imagine a club who were ultimately, from the start, overspending, which led to the rest of the unfortunate mess.

Imagine someone rapidly losing interest in your plight because of your "gatecrashing".

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Ladies and gentleman I present to you...

John Lennon! 

Fair point on Dorchester away. and Bushy doing well thank you.

It has been said by several welling fans on this forum that they have sympathy with the Hereford Fans plight and I am sure that those Welling Fans who will be attending the game, will be in a better position to understand the plight even more when they are at the ground and meet Hereford and Kidderminster fans face to face and will be in a better position to make their own informed decision to whether or not to join in the applause or not.

Yes the protest is going on and I am sure the welling fans will respect that on the night but by the same token the Hereford fans and Kidderminster fans should also respect the fact this is a big night in our clubs history and the welling fans attending the game are their to predominantly to support the team.

I would also point out that welling fans supported a bucket collection at our ground towards your cause, so we are not as sympathetic to your plight as being made out to be.

We have had our off the field problems which I accept were different to the Hereford cause but just as serious, but we took the view it is our problem and we need to resolve it ourselves, and that was the right decision for us.

To a degree I believe in there own way the Hereford Fans are taking the view it is their problem, by trying to gain media attention to highlight their cause and boycotting games, however from the outside I do not see what difference boycotting games and attending other games to protest in the long run will actually achieve except the club folding eventually.

For me if I wanted a board out I would attend the games, have a banner made with Sack the Board or similar wording and protest peacefully from the terraces and hope a local news papers or the non league paper reports the unrest between the fans and the board, what I would not do is turn my back on the players during a game as a protest.

MAXBULL wrote:

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Imagine somebody taking notice of a Welling game!



You still haven't said how Bushy is getting on. Is he in the team?

-- Edited by MAXBULL on Saturday 4th of October 2014 09:57:17 AM

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 Well you clearly haven't

To me this isn't about being live on TV. I wouldn't like fans of other clubs protesting at ANY game that doesn't affect them (live on the box or not). I know Hereford fans love their club but it doesn't mean we have to as well.

As for not knowing about their plight, they have had non stop coverage on the BBC website with very in depth reports (the latest being yesterday) and many other sites. They think we don't know what it's like, then I suggest some have a read up;

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/welling-united-faced-with-windin-a82627/

http://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/article/newsitem=828/title=welling+united+fans+save+club

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/supporters-save-welling-united-a-a79345/

I doubt the TV audiences for a Kidderminster v Welling game will be that substantial either. Whatever happens Wednesday will not affect anything.

Can see both sides of this. However Hereford guests, don't let your frustrations run over so that you alienate some of the people on here who have significant sympathy for you plight.

We are a very small club punching well beyond our weight, getting little recognition from anyone, a club that could so easily have folded in very recent times. You are a relatively large club with significant history who should never have been allowed to get into such a state. On our first live TV appearance some see the limelight being stolen...that is understandable.

At the end of the day, live and let live. I hope you survive and when, one day, you are back in the higher leagues, hope that you will remember the likes of Welling who have supporters who were only too willing to donate cash to you in time of need.

thefatbull - HUFC wrote:

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Bangingmyhead wrote:

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If The Hereford 'fans' planning to attend this brazen piece of 'Woe is me' pathetic mass sulk, put as much effort into actually attending matches, got behind the team they purport to love and stopped all the gnashing of teeth and wailing, just because there are some dodgy geezers in town, we wouldn't be in half the trouble we find ourselves in.
Hijacking a live game that means a lot to the Welling fans is selfish and ignorant. It will achieve absolutely nothing apart from rekindling some already dried up crocodile tears from some of our supporters. Hardly anyone will go, which will make the whole thing even more useless, and who will see this 'protest' while the match is on? Very few, as quite rightly, the cameras will be focussing on the on-field action.
I sincerely hope Welling take about 300 fans and completely drown out the muted chants in the corner. I hope you enjoy your day out and remember the game for the right reasons-a thumping win against Kiddy, and a moral victory against the fansbutnotfans. Good luck to you.

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Here we go again.

Kidderminster fans have been really supportive through our past 2 season, if only other clubs were as sympathetic as them.

We get it, your first live fixture - great! The £1k off BT Sport will be good for your club, but with 20 travelling fans I don't quite get your problem.

Would you be complaining if you had an extra 200-500 through the gates to boost to your coffers? As well as the £5k(?) from BT Sport.

If you were in our position you'd be grateful of football family.

People will watch the game because of Kiddy vs Welling, NOT because of a HUFC protest.

We don't want to cause trouble, chaos or anything. Let us PEACEFULLY protest and you can PEACEFULLY support your lovely team.

Everything that is being planned is LEGAL and there's no guarantee that anything to do with the protest will be broadcast on air.

The Hereford supporters you will see on Wednesday are the REAL Hereford United fans, the ex-life blood of the side.

It's not your stadium so you can't prevent us doing anything.

It's a free world and all of us just need our football fix.

 

I will recommend the Famous Aggborough Soup and the brilliant homemade Cottage Pie!

 

See you Wednesday.

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You're perfectly entitled to attend if you so wish, and no of course it isn't illegal, but that doesn't mean we have to be happy about it.

You came on here, not the other way around, if you don't like Welling's fans comments don't come on a Welling forum.

Quite a few people think what you are doing is wrong. What has happened at your club isn't acceptable I agree, but that doesn't mean we appreciate you gatecrashing our game Wednesday and stealing our limelight, whether it be for 90 minutes or 90 seconds, or whether we take 500 or 5.

Your friendly close relationship with Kidderminster is unusual, but commendable, it doesn't mean we have to bend over and take what you are doing positively if we don't want to.

Frankly, so what you want Wednesday, personally I don't care one way or the other about Hereford FC. Sorry, harsh, but true. I am merely defending Welling which as a Welling fan I will do. But I won't take my comments to your forum, and perhaps you shouldn't bring yours on here if you are going to have a moan at us when we have done nothing wrong other than question your attendance.

If nothing else I am instantly sceptic of anyone using the phrase "football family".

You've made your point. Now please leave.

stafford wrote:

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MAXBULL wrote:

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I think you lot need to take a look at the Kiddy forum and when you've done that, take a good hard look at yourselves.

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 We did that a couple of years ago. It yielded £64,000 in about four weeks and a consensus that it was our mess and ONLY ours to sort out. When they have done that, we are all ears....

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Your efforts in clearing your debts and sorting out your financial problems are commendable. I wish that we had been in a position to do the same, but we never were. If you read my first post, you'll see that we did something similar on a couple of occasions in the last 12 months to pay off the previous Chairman's debt, when he refused to pay his staff, creditors or pay his tax bills whilst sunning himself at his luxury Barbados hideaway, claiming he had put in as much as he was prepared to. Unfortunately, we were never likely to (and nor did we want to) pay off all of the club's debts which included several hundred thousand that the chairman decided he had put in as loans rather than a gift.

The Supporters Trust did offer to negotiate for his shares when he made it clear that he wanted to sell, but he refused to talk to them, opting instead to deal with Tommy Agombar, the convicted crook who has failed the FA's own criteria for owning a club although they now seem to turn a blind eye to his continued involvement. Thus we were never in a position to decide, as you did, that it was 'our mess' to clear up. Thanks to the vindictive and selfish actions of our previous chairman, we find ourselves in a position where, as fans, we can actually do virtually nothing. 

However, the footballing authorities could. Agombar has failed the ODT and his company has flouted many rules including the payment of footballing creditors and ground capacity requirements. Because we are now such a small fish in an even smaller pool, however, they do not seem to want to enforce their own regulations but are happy to ignore our plight. Many suspect that the relegation of the club (which Agombar admits was a 'business' decision) was a deliberate part of his plan to see us at a level where we are out of the public eye so that he can pursue his real objective of making money out of our city centre location without interference. It seems to be working.

Not being in a position to do anything about it ourselves, our only hope is to raise the profile of our predicament and to do what we can to make sure that it IS brought to wider public attention so that, at the very least, the FA and the Southern league are forced to disclose what their position is or maybe to shame them into taking action. 

We have very few avenues open to us to do this. We have sunk to a level where we are way off the normal media radar. So when our friends at KHFC agreed to help us by allowing us to stage a protest at this televised game, we were really grateful. Nobody wants to steal your thunder, but genuinely, this is a situation which potentially affects all clubs and fans at non league level.

I sincerely believe that there is room for all of us to get what we want and need out of Wednesday night. BT, first and foremost, have a match to cover and you will get your 15 minutes of fame. However, if we get a mention too and can give the ineffectual suits of the FA and the SL a black eye (or a red face) then that will be mission accomplished for us. How else can we do it? We have to take every opportunity that we can. It would be nice to have you 'on board' too if you can just see how important this is  in a wider context than a one off football match.

Oh dear.  So much kerfuffle.  Sometimes, it seems, solidarity is an evil word.  I really do not understand our problem. Already, this match has far greater exposure than it probably merited because of the intervention of Hereford fans (or, at least, those opposed to the current club - I did not realise that there was a lumpen Hereford United but, I suppose, those fans who support that reformed club have a point of view too and, in the interests of democracy, maybe they should be heard?) Kidderminster fans, to be fair, are acting out of solidarity - although a few more quid always helps - and good luck to them too.  Hereford fans should always have the right to protest and they should have that right upheld at Aggborough.   However,  I never thought that I would agree with Stafford, but what prevents Hereford fans holding their protest in the Harriers' fans part of the ground given their current affinity rather than gatecrashing the Wings' fans and their day? We have not had an answer to that.