By theimps.tkq
July 18 2009

Hereford United's stay in League One last just a season and now they've returned to League Two. It looks like being another long and hard season for the Bulls but a very ambitious transfer during the summer could easily turn out to be the difference between safety and relegation. It's February 2007 and things are looking good at Sincil Bank. City actually have a realistic chance of not only achieving automatic promotion, but also of winning the title. City had just done the double over Peterborough United (and to this date remain the last side to do so), continued Torquay United's slump and brought themselves right back into the title race with a victory over Walsall on Sky Sports, things were looking up....then came Hereford United.

City could have theoretically gone top with a victory over Hereford on a chilly late winter's evening and many fans were already talking of the prospect of playing teams such as Leeds the next season. Hereford then came and spanked City 4-1, the Imps haven't recovered since, but Hereford have gone up and come back since and Graham Turner has now taken a step back and will concentrate on just his Chairman role, leaving John Trewick a very risky appointment given that he has never managed a side permanently.

Hereford probably gained promotion a few years too early and their record in League One would tend to agree with that. Having lost their first game, including a 6-1 mauling at Bristol Rovers, they went on to win back-to-back games just once, but going on back-to-back losing runs in all competitions on no fewer than 9 occasions. Losing a whopping 30 games last season, easily the worst record in professional football last season, unsurprisingly saw them relegated.

They got mauled on a fairly regular basis, including the aforementioned 6-1 defeat, they also lost 4-0 at Oldham, 3-0 at MK Dons, Scunthorpe and Swindon and 4-1 at Stockport. They ended their season on a run of a whopping run of 13 defeats in 15 games, only picking up points against Carlisle and Yeovil.

It's a far cry from when they surprised a lot of people two seasons ago when they won promotion, then again, their squad last season wasn't a "WHO'S WHO" of the best loanee players available at the time. Yes, they played within the rules, but it says a lot that your own players aren't good enough to win you promotion.

Their dealings in the transfer market have actually been quite decent so far, and I am particularly impressed with the signing of Kenny Lunt from Sheffield Wednesday and he could easily turn out to be the best buy of the summer in the entire division. Also coming in is Leon Constantine, a man familiar to a lot of teams in the division and a player who usually scores a fair few goals.

I think that like quite a few teams in the division, Hereford are entering a stage of transition and although I don't think they'll go down, I can't really picture them being stable enough to enter midtable. Again, although I don't think they'll ever be in danger of relegation, I can't picture them finishing above 21^st.

Can Hereford re-stablise after nightmare season?

Discussion started by theimps.tk (IP Logged), 18/07/2009 14:51

theimps.tk
18/07/2009 14:51

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ALWAYSANIMP
19/07/2009 07:51

yes, I think they can stabilise. They've made decent signings early rather than teams scarmbling about 3 weeks before the start of the season trying to find players...any players at times it seems (who could i be talking about???).

Herefrod will be mid-table. Surely Accrington must struggle to stay up this time around....unles they start off with a convincing home win!!

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I Blame Paul Mayo
19/07/2009 10:07

realistically they were never going to survive on the crowds they get in league one.

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