Sounds reasonable, we've been caught out before by crooks and shysters so thankfully he's not just selling without doing due diligence on potential buyers.

Wasent his intentions to sell.
Major U turn.
When wull he stop blaming our brilliant fanbase for his failure.
Cheap talk.

Cant see anyone wanting to do buisness with him.
Why buy when it will work out cheaper to start from scratch.

The ultimate reason we are where we are is due to Raj appointing the wrong people after Challinor. The blame for piss poor recruitment, team selections, and therefore results is down to those who were appointed on the recruitment and managerial side. I very much doubt he's been involved day to day.
He rescued us when nobody else was interested and from this statement he's not selling for a quick buck, he wants someone to come in and move the club forwards. Fair enough as far as I'm concerned, he doesn't need the hassle and harassing him or his family will achieve nothing except maybe he walks and leaves us in the hands of an administrator.
Whatever our thoughts, he holds all the cards and doesn't have to tell us anything at all.
s long as he's giving JA what he wants and needs, and there's no reason to think he isn't (otherwise I suspect he would walk out of principle) we just have to live and hope for a good ending.

Looks like the only hope is JA is some kind of a miracle man trying to work with a budget that in reality is just bullshit to mug our loyal fans.
3 wins from his 12 games says hes not a Magician.
Anyhow 1% of our fan base on the Bunker wont change jackshit.
Good night.
Time for me Medication

thats fair enough. think a lot of the problems stemmed from the crawley defeat and when it happened. if we had been beaten by them much earlier in the season but still went down to a defeat by someone else i doubt there would have been the same abuse directed at him and family members. so much was on that game for everyone connected with the club there was bound to be some fallout between everyone how the game panned out. doubt he did a challinor fist pump at the final result even if he was on his own in a room with no one watching him.

I don't think this feeling towards Singh is an accident of the fixture computer. This has been bubbling for a long time, right from that absolute joke of a pre-season we had.

its been a joke since the say challinor walked out of the door. everything that went on seems the wrong decision till JA walked in. even that is still a wait and see next season to whether or not he can do a job with pools or not. however singh is just an owner and be like the vast majority of them never get the real liking from fans. even man.city after doing the treble there is a question mark about their owners. most mistakes at clubs eventually end up at the chairman/owners door. doubt the players and the coaching staff have any real love for the vast majority of them. they speak a different language where what they know about the game is second hand knowledge and less than the average fan has. when he does leave pools his replacement is sure to get similar stick from fans once he makes a mistake and is not to there liking.

The trouble with any club owner is they come into the business thinking they can apply their successful business model, which they’re good at, to achieve the same results in running a football club.
The problem is, that running a football club is like herding cats.
For a start you’re at he mercy of advisers and ‘experts’ because most owners may think they know ‘a bit’ about the game but they don’t.
It’s a bit like driving a car to London without ever having sat in a car before, you may survive …… but it’s not recommended.

Hopefully Singh is doing to do due diligence, I was surprised by how quick IOR offloaded Pools first to TMG who ran of with the gate money from 2 games and were later jailed.Then snake oil salesman Coxhall who had a Recruitment Agency that no one had ever heard off. IOR couldn’t sustain the losses once Larsen (LOG) bailed out so just wanted Pools of their hands.

Yes there are mistakes by owners. But most of them appoint people to run their clubs who know what they're doing so at least mistakes are minimised. Raj failed on this bit too. He has also brought in his own culture to the club, which must work in his primary businesses but there's good reason no other clubs seem to have the same approach to running themselves as us.

As I said, he could STILL be the man to take us forwards but he would have to rethink and reinvent himself as an owner. Perhaps it is in fact what he iintends/intended to do and it would actually be a shame if he went. Most people would agree though, Raj couldn't keep going along as he was, something needed to change.

think snowy,s last post is the answer to all these mistakes. its really like appointing a top football manager to run one of his care homes and expecting it to go without a hitch.

I would love to see a return to the days of appointing manager to oversee all aspects of team matters and the commercial running left to a commercial manager…. The chairman can then watch from a distance and leave it to the experts.
In my humble opinion clubs at even Pools level are full of deadwood posts that really are irrelevant.

Realistically, the only people who know enough about the running of a modern professional Football Club to say what roles are now required and which ones aren’t, are those who have been involved with a successful modern professional Football Club in the last 10 or so years. It would be easy to say that we need just a manager, Coach, Physio, Chairman and a Commercial Manager just like we did in the 1980s, but we really have no idea of the work that goes on behind the scenes Monday to Friday.

The most successful period we have ever had was under IOR, and I remember people who were involved at that time came back to the club when we were in the National League and said they were shocked at how everything had been cut back to the bone, they said that the place was like a morgue, there were about 5 times as many staff there in the IOR years making everything run smoothly. But to do that, we needed to run at a loss of £1m per year.

So we either need to size the back room staff to break even, or find someone who will subsidise the additional professionalism and reap the benefits of that.

I get the balancing the books thing but he's gone too far. There are situations where you need to spend to earn. Make sure there's merch in the shop. Make sure your best players are under contract so they go for fees not for free. Make sure the match day experience is sweet so people want to come back. Don't count on the manager you've appointed being able to work miracles with a turbo modest budget. Balance the books of course, very sensible but the cut backs have gone too far.

I wasn’t advocating skimping on staffing, but clear lines of responsibility, However, football, like a lot of service industries is notorious now for its non jobs and pompous titles off the pitch.

t rue, and football seems to be following councils in this respect and setting up its own department of silly named job titles. however there are other clubs that were at our level last season employing more than we do, plus those we do not know who only work at home games. football has changed in the last 40 years but many of those changes are of little interest to the average fan or there involvement in them.

The million pound a season loss wasn’t actually a physical million pounds, some how IOR were using Pools as a tax write off, I am not sure Raj Singh could do the same, Pools were registered offshore in the IOR days in the Virgin Islands.

Hes doing the right thing - hes not putting us in the position we found ourselves in with Coxhall and TMH etc...

aslong as hes in charge we will have a football team to support and by the sounds of things a few quid to bring some players in. JA knows the score and has worked with pennies before - we know hes a good manager its proven in the short time with us. Regardless of wins he got us unbeaten in quite a few games against some tough oppo ! 2 of which went on to be promoted btw !

i think it will be a while before we see the club sold - next season will be about finding our own back in that league - the rest can sort itself out in the background im not assed - ive missed the Vic and its only been a few weeks - cant wait to be back supporting JA and the lads !

Agree 100%.

Looking after number one would be my priority..lets not beat around the bush here charity begins at home for me..

If raj is somehow offered what he is wanting, does anyone really believe he will then be bothered if the new owners have the clubs best interest at heart? The guy has already basically threatened to pit the club into admin if fans get on his back.

Surely if he gets what he's wanting then the prospective new owners have proven they have the funds and expressed that they want to push the club onward?
Win win isn't it?

If he was as bad as you claim he is, surely he’d have put the club into admin? Wouldn’t that be fun.
I suspect he might just want to stay on to see how things pan out on the field, what’s the point of giving out money for new players otherwise?

Season ticket money Snowy.

Can't see ST money trickling in outweighing the costs of running the club through the close season. Also can't understand why the constant sniping about Raj, first off they wanted him out of the club - well he's going isn't he? He keeps the fans in the dark - he's just made a statement which reads positively hasn't he? Or would we like him gone today and us in administration because there's not a buyer in place?
Yes he's made huge mistakes at times, but the constant sniping serves no purpose at this time.

He has made positive statements for the last two seasons, yet still the gullible fall for it. Let's see how easy it is to shift raj, I don't belive for one second he will go quietly or easily.

Why would he hang around and face abuse? I can understand he wants a decent amount of his money back but other than that, why would he want to stay? Do you think he is coining it by owning Pools?

That really would be comic book scenarios…if anyone was that cynical enough to depart with money that fans have paid to benefit the club, I’d organise a posse myself.
The season ticket money keeps the income flowing to keep the club running over the close season was always my take on these matters.

I’d expect him to make positive statements. He carries the can for the nightmare disaster under Wee Jock McUseless, but I suspect he was acting on advice from his backroom staff….. despite what’s happened I don’t suspect for one minute he planned the whole disater for a laugh, people generally come onto club ownership to succeed.

I just don’t understand Bellinghampoolie all he does is complain especially about Raj who he seems to detest. Does he actually support or even go to Pools matches.

P.S I’m one of the gullible who along with my friends have renewed our ST’s because if everybody did not the club would go bust.

The only other option is the idiot option ….. where you don’t buy your season ticket till the end of the season but……only if we’re in the automatic promotion spot.

What's the point in buying a season ticket at the end of the season

Think he was saying you'd be gullible if you bought your season ticket solely on the basis of Raj's statement. Its likely you did not.

Well to be fair there is a need to counter those who blindly and relentlessly leap to his defence. Keeps things in balance.

Er…..I think you’ll find it was a joke. Although on second thoughts, some mug would fall for it

We don’t blindly jump to Raj defence we buy STs to support the club. Everybody knows he’s made mistakes but to suggest he will walk off with the ST money sounds like a bitter person with a personal gripe.

I did get it just thought it was really funny anyway

Wasn't a personal prod at you. I'm certain you bought a season ticket from loyalty alone. I don't think having a season ticket is s reliable indicator of whether you're a pro or anti Raj extremist or anywhere in between.

There are people taking up some very strong positions here, without real proof. Raj makes a statement, its just as weird to just take it as gospel as it is to just take it as bollocks.

My deepest apologies Mr L…. Just my twisted sense of humour

think people buy a ST for a multitude of reasons and a statement like raj put out is hardly going to sway them one way or another. possibly those saying they are not going to buy because of it were not going to buy one in the first place.

I could turn around and say that ploughing money into a guy who has basically done nothing to stem the decline since we were promoted, told some very exaggerated stuff about play off budgets and has had a crash cause in failure at 2 football league clubs is not the wisest move if you want to see us back in the football league anytime soon. Not to mention his threats to fans, which he has made to two sets of fans now to basically shut up or admin.The only way this club will move forward is if someone comes in. Raj Singh in charge for much longer will be a complete disaster for us. No way is he going to invest heavily in a team to get back up, he can say what he likes it just won't happen.

I would still buy one if I felt the guy was genuinely trying to get us back up or even just a fighting chance. If the club signs quality national league players or even half decent league 2 I would back the club with a season ticket, though paying through the turnstiles is probobly more helpful week in week out anyway.

How are we ploughing money into Raj. Are you saying he is taking our money that is keeping the club going. Realistically we know Raj is not going to spend vast amounts like IOR he is a rich man but is never going to be a ‘sugar daddy’ like the blokes at Stockport, Wrexham etc. I would love Raj to sell out to one of these type but so would supporters of dozens of clubs.

Your talking like the club is going to go bust tommorow if we dont get season tickets. Our beloved ex ceo or whatever he was said we were turning a profit not long back. Maybe that was lies too. I'd rather we put money into the club when we find out if we're being taken over or not. Raj can do what he likes with the season ticket money it's his club.id personally rather give it to potential new owners, of which they have been meetings.


I'm certainly not giving it to a man who has told a few porkies and is openly admitting threatening another clubs existence. This guy has history of destroying clubs.

Nobody jumps blindly to Raj's defence but I have to say that there are those who appear to blindly speculate just to attack him. Nobody knows what will happen next, probably not even Raj himself. Until a defining decision is made on the ownership of the club, we have to wait and see, frustrating as that is.
As I have said ad nauseam, until Raj is either replaced or he walks away, with everything that entails, he is the only person we've got. That is not blinding defence it is the blinding truth.
Raj has intimated he wants to sell the club but he also wants to do his best to get the right people in. We can only take that on it's face value. It is also true that he threatened drastic reaction to personal abuse so we also have to take that on face value and refrain from saying or suggesting anything which gives him the opportunity to react as per his threat.

alwe can really do is moan and that will do no good in the end. our only action is voting with our feet on turning up to games whether through a ST or paying match to match. if all the raj hat ers decided not to bother and we lost X thousand of fans overnight we,d be worse than we already are. who anyway goes to a game because who the owner is. if they did the gate would have been zero in the coxhall days.

Yep, solid common sense.