Hereford Pegasus won promotion back to the Hellenic Premier with a 3-0 play off final win over Worcester Raiders back in May this year.
Matt Healey spoke to Chairman Kevin Bishop who is excited for the upcoming season.
Kevin told Your Herefordshire: “The original league fixtures have now been changed so we now start away with a local derby at Lads Club on Tuesday 2nd August.
“Then on Saturday 6th August we have Stourport Swifts at home in the FA Cup. It’s a big season for us, a while back we were in the Hellenic Premier and are delighted to have returned, we’ve worked hard with all our teams within the club to get back to this level. We won plenty of silverware last season across a lot of our age groups.”
There are a number of former Hereford FC players involved at Pegasus and manager Mark Hibbard also played in the Football League for Hereford United in the 1990’s. He scored for the Bulls against Scunthorpe in the below game.
Bishop told us: “We have bought in Ben Miller who played in the early games for Hereford FC and he later played for Westfields, we also have a striker called Cawley Cox who is an excellent prospect, plus Hereford fans will know about Carlos Moreira.”
Bishop added: “Carlos is an interesting player, he has calmed down his temperament a lot, as in the past he could be a bit of a hothead, the management team have really worked hard with him to get him to where he is now and he has matured to be an important member of the first team squad. We have also just announced the signing of Sam Pearson too, he has experience of playing at a higher level.”
As well as a successful first team. Pegasus have youth and female teams who play at their ground on Old School Lane. “We were founded in 1955 and one of the Pegasus originals came to a game last season and told me how proud he was of the success we have achieved. We have a 3G pitch which is a fantastic community facility and around 350 players are involved at the club. If you add the coaches, parents and volunteers we have around 1,000 each week coming through our doors.”
In the 2022/2023 season Herefordshire will have three clubs at step five of the non league pyramid and more importantly all playing in the same league.
“Lads Club reached this level for the first time last season, in previous years Westfields would be in the Midland League and Pegasus in the Hellenic League which both were the same tier of football, but its going to be an exciting season with us all in the same league. It’s great for the city of Hereford to have these local derbies, there is potential for any one of the three teams to push for promotion. Any team making the journey to Hereford always seemed to complain about the travelling to get here, so now these teams have to come three times to the county and I believe this will be an advantage to ourselves, Westfields and Lads Club.”
Pegasus achieved promotion last season through the play offs, but in the Hellenic Premier it’s a little bit different to go up to the next level which is Southern League South West.
Kevin told me: “The champions automatically go up, I believe then the 2nd place is worked out on points per game and then the FA work it out across teams from different regions as to who goes up.”
With Bishops Cleeve and Westbury United achieving promotion last season from the Hellenic Premier and Cinderford Town not being relegated from the league above due to earning a reprieve with Walton Casuals withdrawing, the 2022/2023 season is most definitely wide open.
“It was disappointing Cinderford didn’t come down, as it would have bought an extra local derby into the picture. Worcester Raiders have now come up too because of the Walton Casuals situation, so we have gained that one as another local fixture.
“I’m sure Raiders will want to put one over us after we beat them in the play off final at their home ground, but we will see how it goes and we have them at home early in the season, we can’t wait to get underway.”
