By Kate Jackson
March 8 2010

Edgar Street is home to Hereford United and is one of football's least welcoming venues. It's a very old ground and gives the automatic feeling of nostalgia, but a lack of decent facilities, racist fans and not being able to see one touch line makes this ground one of my least favourites to visit.

There's nothing quite like interupting a run of familiar grounds than to visit a ground you know very little about and that was the case when City were the first visitors to newly promoted Hereford United. Pictures of the ground that I'd seen on the internet hadn't really revealed a lot about the ground and I was slightly pensive about visiting this ground.

After a length journey, we finally arrived at Edgar Street but the outside view of the ground did the stadium no favours what so ever. Getting off around the other side of the ground, we were forced to walked around through the Hereford fans but to be fair, there was absolutely no trouble, no comments of a vulgar nature that I could hear and I'd only experienced something like that whilst at Kidderminster Harriers. It should also be noted that my friend Nigel experienced racist comments from fans during this walk around the ground.

I should note though that in my second visit I went in the car with someone who didn't have a sat-nav, and there are no signs to the ground whatsoever, making it extremely difficult to find the ground.

The turnstile system confused a lot of people because there were different turnstiles for the terrace and the seating but there was no indication as to which was which and fans only found out when they got their tickets. Interesting though, fans could pay the cheaper price for terracing but then walk up the stairs to the seating simply because there was no-one guarding the stairs until just before kick off.

There has also been a bit of controversy in some of City's games there in the past when people paid the higher price to get into the seating, but were given tickets for the terracing and weren't allowed into the seating section, at this point they objected and demanded their money back, but there was no proof that they had paid the extra money.

I had gone into the seated section for this game but was totally unprepared for the steepness of the stand. I thought Carlisle was steep but this was ridiculous and you always felt like you were apart to fall down but at least it offered a good view of the action, however, there was no indication as to where the away end stopped and the home end started and this caused much confusion.

Behind both goals were terraces and the one nearer to the away fans was curved and far back from the pitch and very few fans were in this stand and it looked like the stand was about to fall down. The other terrace was the main congregation area for the home fans and this was again curved but not as far back from the pitch. The final stand was similar to the side stand at Boston in that was a small elevated stand.

Over the years the Blackfriars End was condemned and was no longer allowed to be used, although they did place a temporary seated stand in 2010, although you can only have that stand if you take sufficient numbers to justify having it.

Atmosphere at Edgar Street was fanastic on my first visit and although you can't understand what they're saying, they were loud as hell if even when losing, the atmosphere was really good and the cheering when they score was also fairly loud. However, it must be a lot different in non-league because I can't recall hearing fans moan as much as this and it must be a world record for "handball" shouts.

I should also note that on my second visit, which came on a Saturday afternoon, the atmosphere was very subdued and I barely heard any chanting whatsoever, even when they were winning. Infact, since that first visit I have very rarely heard the Hereford fans singing, even if they are winning comfortably.

The fans aren't overly friendly, with one of my friends receiving racist abuse whilst he was in the car park. Also, if you sit in the seated section of the away end, look out for a Susan Boyle lookalike sat on the bottom row in the Hereford side.

Overall, Hereford isn't bad but is definitely no higher than Conference standard. Some of the facilities, and not to mention the method of doing things such as the fan segregation definitely isn't up to much and that's what denies this from being one of the more welcoming venues in the lower leagues.

Hereford United's Edgar Street

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 08/03/2010 11:31

theimps.ka
08/03/2010 11:31

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