Luke Graham (Hereford United)

LITTLE did I know when I signed for Hereford United last June how difficult it would be. I wanted a challenge and boy did I get one!

All things considered  to finish the season in the top six is a massive achievement. It’s been a great end to the season for us.

Fair play to the players at the club, we have just got stronger and stronger. We have been one of the in-form teams the last few months and had some great victories away from home.

In particular I enjoyed our 1-0 victory away at Forest Green. It was a hard decision for me to leave there in the summer; it’s a great club on the up. The chairman there would be any manager’s dream.

Yet I’m always up for a challenge and believed I would play a bigger part at Hereford. So to overtake them in the league was a nice. Of course when I signed for Hereford I wanted to get into the play-offs. It soon became clear, however, that it was asking a lot.

That said, I knew the management of Martin Foyle and Andy Porter would get the best out of anything put in front of them.

Luke Graham picks up the Hereford United Player of the Month award for December from his manager Martin Foyle

They must have been barking mad trying to save the club by shaving off £600,000 from last season’s budget, but somehow they did!

Running round the Hereford Racecourse during pre-season, little did I know they had unearthed some young, cheap hungry players.

The uncertainty surrounding the club hit us in October when we didn’t get paid for the first time, it’s never gone away. It  was just before our FA Cup run.

I genuinely don’t think the younger lads really realised how important financially it was to beat Shrewsbury. We raised a  lot of money for Movember and our team spirit really came to the fore. With lots of cutbacks being made constantly, five of us were moved into a club house to save money.

Chris Carruthers and I stayed in single beds in a converted garage box room! It was absolutely freezing with all the drafts.

Yet we were prepared to do it and run a new business out of it too!