Matt Healey continues the series.
John Trewick started his career at West Bromwich Albion and played nearly 100 league games for the club during the late 1970s. He also played six times in the UEFA Cup during the 1978-79 season, scoring one goal against Galatasaray.
He moved to Newcastle United in 1980 for £250,000, which was a club record fee at the time for the Magpies. His time at Newcastle was somewhat affected by injury, although he enjoyed a successful loan spell at Oxford United, whom he later joined on a free transfer in 1984. Trewick played in every league game for Oxford during 1984-85. The following season he was part of the team that won the League Cup, then known as the Milk Cup.
He later played for Birmingham City and non-league Bromsgrove Rovers, during the 1989-90 season he returned briefly to the Football League with Hartlepool United. After finishing his playing career back in non-league football with Gateshead, he moved into coaching. He coached at West Bromwich Albion from 1993, moving to Derby County in 2001. After leaving Derby he worked as a coaching educator and had a brief spell working at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the youth department before joining Hereford United in June 2004.
Hereford had suffered heartbreak the previous season in being knocked out of the play offs by Aldershot Town. A number of players had left the club to play in the Football League and it was a traumatic time for the club’s supporters who were worried that the best chance of promotion had slipped away.
I asked Trewick what brought him to Edgar Street.
“I was working at Wolves prior to coming to Hereford. I spoke to Richard O’Kelly (Who was leaving Hereford to become Sean O’Driscoll’s assistant at Bournemouth) and he said there was a vacancy and asked if I would be interested. I wanted to work with first team players again so I met with Graham Turner and took it from there and I agreed to join the club”
With the high turnover of players was it a case of lifting everybody again?
“Not really, I knew it would be a little bit different with the high turnover, we had lost five or six of the better players and at that level players will always get picked up by other clubs, they tend to go up a league or two and get offered better money elsewhere, so the challenge was there and I was relishing it, the club was on the up”
One of the new signings that summer was the late Adam Stansfield who was the 2004/2005 top scorer “Adam was a terrific man and a good striker, he made a excellent contribution to the club and it was so sad he died at a young age, his son Jay though is continuing his legacy and its great to see he scored for Exeter yesterday”
Hereford would finish the 2004/2005 season again in 2nd place. It would be heartbreak again in the play offs this time to Stevenage who defeated The Bulls 2-1 on aggregate over the two legs.
The following season the club would retain most of the players, apart from left back Mark Robinson who went to Stockport County ,added to the squad was extra experience with the likes of Guy Ipoua, Alex Jeannin, Jon Brady and Stacy Caldicott.
I asked Trewick how important those players were?
“You need a balance of youth and experience in any league, it was promotion we were going for, in the end it proved it would be the right decision as we beat Halifax 3-2 in that fantastic day at Leicester”
At the third time of asking Hereford would win promotion via the Play Offs. I asked Trewick his memories of the final.
“The over riding memory is Ryan Green’s winning goal, the game was a close fought contest that could have gone either way, but we won it with a moment of real quality in extra time”
After a nine year absence Hereford returned to the Football League and would beat Stockport County 2-0 in the first game of the season. Hereford consolidated in League Two and finished the campaign in 16th position.
“It was always going to be difficult after nearly ten years away from the Football League, from memory it went pretty well, the first half of the season was better than the latter part, but looking back we did reasonably well against bigger and better clubs”
Despite being favourites for relegation Hereford would win promotion to League One during the 2007/2008 season. In a season full of happy memories the club signed former Premier League players Trevor Benjamin and Clint Easton, and sprinkled with top quality loan signings from higher level teams the formula worked a treat. Two of these loan signings were from Watford. Theo Robinson and Toumani Diagouraga.
“They were vital to what we were looking to achieve, we came up with a plan to get a significant number of loan signings into the club, we also bought in the likes of Lee Collins, Robbie Threlfall, Sherjill MacDonald and Gary Hooper. It worked out perfectly. We also signed Lionel Ainsworth from Derby County who was fantastic and he was then sold to Watford for big money, but part of the deal meant we could also keep Robinson and Diagouraga till the end of the season, everybody in the squad gave 100%, that team and the success we had will live long in the memory for me”
Hereford were now in the privileged position of League One and at the same footballing level as the likes of Leeds United, Leicester City, Brighton and Huddersfield Town, but would sadly end the season in bottom place.
I asked Trewick with the benefit of hindsight what would he had done differently”
“When a club gets to a level so quickly it can be hard, we tried to sign Gary Hooper permanently that summer, unfortunately he went to Scunthorpe, had we managed to sign him I think it would have turned out differently as he would have scored us 20-25 goals and that would have been the difference”
Graham Turner stepped down as manager to concentrate on being Chairman at the very latter part of the League One season and Trewick was now in charge. I asked him how things changed for him.
“Being the manager is different, not a lot really changed though, Graham (Turner) went into the boardroom as there were things he needed to sort out, I know at the time the club was in dispute with the police over the cost of policing games and I think Graham felt he needed to step away from the football side of things as he had a lot going on. So I decided to take the role on, it was an up and down season, we had come down from a higher league, but had lost some of our better players, but when I left we were still around 10 points away from the relegation zone”
Trewick would leave the club amicably in March 2010 after a 2-0 home defeat to Macclesfield Town. Graham Turner returned to the dugout and took charge for the remaining games, it became apparent a couple of months later that this was done to secure the club’s Football League status, as Turner who by now had completed fifteen seasons at the club wanted out and selling a Football League club is a lot more attractive than a National League team. Hereford United was later sold to local businessman David Keyte. Turner and Trewick then linked up at Shrewsbury Town and became the managerial pairing there.
“I enjoyed the four years I had working with Graham (Turner) at Shrewsbury. The fitness coach Tony Ford joined us as well, we won promotion and it was a really well run club”
Turner and Trewick left The New Meadow in early 2014 with the club struggling towards the bottom of League One. The Hereford connection was still there as over the years they recruited the likes of Paul Parry, Darren Jones, Rob Purdie and Lionel Ainsworth.
Fifty or so miles down the A49 things had horrifically capitulated as Hereford United would end the year in the Southern League and would be later liquidated.
“It wasn’t nice to see, especially after the success we had at Edgar Street, as soon as we left the club went on a downward spiral, but at least the club has reformed and would be good to see them back in the Football League in the future”
Is Trewick still involved in the game?
“I’m retired now, my son has a business that i’m involved in, football doesn’t play a part in my life anymore. I spent over 40 years in the game, when my time at Shrewsbury ended I took a holiday, and after reflection I decided to spend more time with my family and I have a business interest to keep me busy when needed”
*Photos supplied by Bulls News & Ellie Woolstenholmes
