The Poolie Bunker

Can we have some communication please, a repeat of last year is just not good enough. Please give everyone something to look ahead to?

Well said Chessington.

Anyone who thinks that IOR were throwing a million a year in, or indeed anything at all over the last six or seven years, needs certifying along with undergoing basic maths tuition. In my view after a lot of research, IOR made an overall profit by owning the club.

I'm not questioning your research but a profit would be surprising. In the last four or five years maybe, overall??

You can pretty much look at IOR's ownership of the club in two separate periods. With Berge Larsen on board with extra cash from Norway and without. The decline in budget and quality of the team directly correlates with his problems with the tax man. Was he the "£1 million pound a year " It can't be denied that in that period we paid the wages, signed good players and watched some good football. 50% of the clubs promotions in our 107 history were under IOR, the closest we've ever been to the 2nd tier was under IOR. It was the best period of the clubs history. Seven play off or better seasons out eight, uncharted waters for the club.

The second spell is one of steady decline culminating in where we are now, on the field at least back to where we started. It's clear no 'extra' investment was forthcoming in this period, in fact very little was forthcoming. The bad thing for us it appears the new owners haven't got the clout to take us back to what we had in those first 10 years of IOR, they are just a continuation of the self sustainable level the club has been chugging along in reverse for the last six or seven years.

I do think clubs can compete better than we are being self sustainable at this level, a few do, but everything has got to be right in the structure of the club for that to be the case from the youth level to the boardroom. I think very little of that is in place at Pools. We have the same people in roles they've been in since the club started going backwards. We'll have people involved in the club who've never been here while we've finished in the top half of any division yet while certain people are still involved it appears they have a job life. That's why I always get frustrated when the first person everyone turns on is the manager. I understand the nature of football and the frustration of losing matches but who is actually going to properly succeed here while the club is basically rotten to the core, with self interest and self preservation coming before what's best for Hartlepool United? We need an overhaul from top to bottom until that happens, I can only see us heading eventually in one direction.

Some valid points from our fans..
But it cant be easy for our Owners to compete with Morecombe and Accrington who attract 10,000 crowds every home match.

Seriously tho if we are a DEBT FREE club then we should be able to compete in what is a very poor league two.

Exactly. And if we ARE a "Debt Free Club", then the new owners need to dip into the Red a bit, because if they don't, we will be out of the League.

Coxall was shouting and saying all the right things at the beginning, especially regarding communication. Here are two questions from his Q&A, neither have happened.


Q. Will JPNG commit to holding public AGMs?

A. We will definitely look into HUFC holding AGM’s or at least a regular forum.


Q. What can supporters expect from JPNG?

A. Hopefully open lines of communication and a genuine feel that their voices are being heard.

I'd be happier if we were bullshit free.

The AGM thing is the biggest load of bullshit, this statement from last year is laughable

"Hartlepool United FC advises shareholders that the Company will not be holding an AGM once again this year in order to reduce costs"

I would love to know these so called costs are.

I think its the cost of revealing the truth.

It was my point at the time, they will have already paid for the accounts to be produced anyway and they hold it at the club so it's not as if they need to hire a venue. The only extra cost I can think of is tea, coffee and biscuits.

You could argue that there is management time to account for too but again, that's already paid for.

Like i said at the initial Coxhall takeover period ..........


He has no cash.

All he had was 37k in the bank....this was info from companies house.

He is just a front man for Mirramix.

I think it was clear from the start this mob had zero cash and were relying on commercial income only which Coxall confirmed.

lets be honest, nothing has changed.

it's no better than it was under IOR as we have no investment. I see moore who was going on about an experienced head needed is now saying might have to sign a kid if they offer something more but they have to be better than what we currently have. I fail to understand what the fuck our scouts are doing if they are managing to find players who they scout further who are worse than the shit we have in our team at present!

literally feels like its just when, not if we will end up in the conference.

Keep getting cheap cast offs from clubs who are no better than us and cant get in their team will eventually lead to one thing, especially if you have a team full of them. Yeah you can get away with one or two and sometimes players improve at different teams but unless we start getting players who actually play well consistently for teams at our level we will always struggle.

Surely I can't be the only one thinking we've been hoodwinked again? How many more smoke and mirrors are going to be pulled out of the hat?

No, you're definitely not the only one. Lots of people are saying it.

Our club is set up for a no win strategy, any players who become 'useful' are courted by other teams as the offer of better pay and chances of achieving something are too tempting.
Therefore we are stuck with the conundrum of trying to get 11 players performing slightly better than they are normally capable of (about 70% full potential) on a regular basis, so that they produce but not to a level where exterior interest will be generated.
Unfortunately our current crop are all performing around the 20% potential mark, hence we are where we are.

I'll sum that up for you, mate. In the shit.