The Poolie Bunker

... It makes me wonder what he got out of it?

Did he make money?
Did he intend on making money with a cunning plan?
Was he in it just for the ride - like a hobby?
Did he enjoy the status, the cut and thrust of football, the hiring and especially the firing.

It's just that he doesn't seem to be a natural at this football chairman lark and he doesn't appear (to me anyway) to enjoy it.

At the end of the day whilst it was a difficult few years under Singh he saved the club no matter what his thoughts were.

He kept it on life support…but that’s not what football clubs are for, they’re there to entertain.

Its a shame that he soured his relationship with the clubs fanbase, but he did.
He put his money where his mouth was and he did indeed save our club.
He was rightly cheered at Bristol when we got promoted.
He was a businessman at the end of the day and when things got a bit tetchy he put in enough money to keep the club ticking over, you never heard of the club not paying its bills, like years ago.
He saw Pools as his cash-cow, invest as little as possible and get back a dividend at the end of the year. (Similar to Mike Ashley at NUFC but obviously on a much smaller scale)
Oh how he must have laughed at everyone complaining but still buying season tickets, match tickets, food and drink - all money in his pocket, he played a smart game.
I seem to remember a Darlo fan coming on here to warn us of what he did to their club and we all thought he was talking rubbish.

He earned my begrudging respect over the years but that turned to utter contempt and thank god he has gone.

Tell you what he must've thoroughly enjoyed the interview process, the hiring and firing he over saw was off the scale, I picture him as a Lord Sugar type character overseeing potential applicants trying to impress him.

I highly doubt, Raj made a profit from his time at the club. As a general rule, football clubs lose money however well organised they are. The oft quoted joke......
"How do you make a small fortune out of running a football club?"
" Start off with a large fortune".

He didn't do anything like what he did to Darlo though did he? He got us on a sound financial footing and said he'd only sell to a decent buyer.
He saved us when it looked like we were doomed, he gave us a promotion and the cup run season to remember fondly.
Unfortunately he also gave us another relegation, several dodgy managers, piss poor players, and completely ostracised the fans.
Overall I'd say the positives very slightly outweigh the negatives throughout his tenure.
I doubt he made money over the 9 years he was here.
He's gone, we're still here, up to LS to try to do better with this club of ours.

If anybody seriously thinks he wouldn't have made money from his time at Pools they are seriously deluded. He walked away a happy man as he alluded to himself so to think it might have cost him money, I mean come on. Whatever money he put into Pools he will have got back with interest.

I seriously think Raj Singh did not make money from his ownership of Pools. Think about the monthly wage bill for players and all staff, plus other outgoings such as travel, taxes, utility bills etc and think about the monthly income for the club. Granted money would have been made for the cup runs but they were a few years back and could never have made up for the monthly losses.

I imagined him more like Barron Greenback (off Danger Mouse) stroking Walter Mitty as opposed to a feline!

You make a good point…we seem to have been in the doldrums for several seasons just ticking over on low revs…was that down to waiting for an acceptable offer rather than any offer….?
We were swinging at anchor, going nowhere.

If Pools were a money making business it surely wouldn't have taken nearly 3 years to find a buyer, even the banks would have been keen to lend .oney to prospective buyers in those circumstances.
Raj himself said he wanted to move the club towards being a self sustainable entity, so that strongly infers it's currently a loss maker. I believe the restructured Academy set up was part of the plan to achieve self sustainability by producing and selling home grown players (as Crewe were for a lot of years), otherwise he could have just closed the Academy when the funding ended.
As for the Cup and promotion winnings, I'm sure a good chunk was used to clear the debts still owed to Coxall and Co.

didn,t he say that when the question of cup money came up. have always said he has neither the funds or the wish to put more money into the club and at best if the sale was in his favour the best he would have got was getting his money back. could have been one of the most unpopular owners in the top 5 divisions. not many clubs would get a two thirds increase in a gate when only a new owner came in without even a new player to watch.

That's pretty fair - he didn't ride to the rescue with the long term intention of screwing us over. But, Jeez, he appointed some awful advisers...