Do you remember the school days, the type of kid who had a ball and when things didn`t go their way, took it home and when grown up still live with mammy, dead end job, spends all their time on message boards, somebody has something they want etc....!

My case for the defence rests m`lud

It's dead simple. Most of the half dozen who were slagging the Trust off had been ex Bunker members who for one reason or another were no long posting. Some were booted off and others left amid bouncing rattles. Their issue was more with the Bunker or perhaps me and definitely Chip. So because most of those doing the driving forward of the trust were 'Bunkerites' they took umbrage. It really is that simple.

I think you are referring to Brian Minton who was vocally anti giving a penny to Pools. Him amongst others are now 'friends of' and talking about raising money for Pools. Frankly they're pissing in the wind. The odd £50 ain't gonna cut it.

In my view Pools will be in administration before too much longer. That belief is based on two winding up orders and more tax to pay. Pools doesn't have much income mid season other than a measly amount of pay on the door home and away supporters. The bulk of the income is season ticket sales in July/August and prize money along with mixture of TV money and other income (L2 TV money is a pittance).

So the big money has been and gone and we're getting winding up orders. That screams cashflow problems and the holding company has a negligible credit rating of 1k. I've just checked on Experian. JPNG could be dissolved and phoenixed in an hour without anyone noticing. There is negligible liability on the current directors so no problem there.

Frankly I don't know where the money to pay the bills for the rest of the season is coming from.

Yep....it's a case of 'I Never Started It So I'm Not Wanting To Be Part Of It'...etc tc!!!!
Very sad....and very sad individuals!!!!
But let's hope they raise loads....In Protest.....with their Tombola!!!!
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and go for £4.75!!!!
PS....I'm sure I read somewhere the other week that they wanted to now be part of The Trust but have now resorted to calling The Trust 'Doris' or 'Hilda' on their message board!!!!
Hilarious....truly side splitting!!!!
Then again they might have done it because they can't spell 'Trust'!!!!
WEDNESDAY!!!!

Howay then 'Tucker'....an answer would be 'nice'!!!!

Yes I remember 1 man put his hand up at the first meeting as he didn't want to give the club a penny


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I think I got called out for never going aswell. Not sure how he knows whether I go or not. Must have one of them find my iPhone apps or is stalking me or something.


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'Tucker' is Tim Dawson. The bloke who slags off the bunker on Facebook at every turn and would never use it. The same bloke who goes into meltdown whenever the site is down.

Its like me slagging off takeaways.

I think he's got a 'mate' who wears glasses!!!!

I know him and all of the above is 100% true!!!!
A 40 something year old bloke on Facebook causing 'chew' whilst thinking it's hilarious!!!! (Guffaw)
Pathetic!!!!

I've never really understood the mentality of people who post things on social media to get 'bites' At the end of the it's you who's talking shite and making people think you're a bit of an idiot even if it is a 'joke' in your self appointed role as a zany who wind merchant.

As for all of this 'Hilda' and 'Doris' crap I am actually embarrassed to be a Pools fan. Its cringeworthy behaviour from grown men.

I don't really want to get involved in any of this rubbish it is one most pathetic situations I have ever encountered. It would be forgivable if this spat was say between pupils in a primary school.

What I don`t understand is this, we have just signed 2 centre halves and they won`t be playing for nothing, they are young so won`t be a fortune, the club have refurbished the Victoria lounge last weekend, the upstairs rooms where functions tale place, new coach, now unless they couldn`t run a bath, why outlay money they haven`t got?
The people who did the refurb are not working for baked goods, so I guess there must be money, we have more backroom staff, so revenue is coming in from somewhere.

Coxhall said a debtor to the club was late with a payment, could be the NPG people pay quarterly or monthly, the meeting rooms are used regularly for interviews etc, not sure what to make of it

But that in itself is worrying.

If pools are reliant upon someone else paying up before they pay, then that smacks of serious trouble.

If my firm only paid when paid we would be in serious shit.

Stuff like this is annoying. I want to like coxall, I want to support him and jpng. I know they ain't rich n I'm on board with that as he's trying and bringing in revenue and as zippy butt says they are making improvements.

But these winding up orders are scary. It's making people question them and lose trust.

A decent offer was released today of kids getting in for a fiver and it's pretty much got lost within all this.


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Apart from a few superficial things have the new owners actually delivered anything of any significance? Are the club in any better position than we were 18 months ago on and off the field?

Take the new turnstiles for example, Have they really been let down by a supplier you're talking 5/6 months here now? It just seems not to be mentioned. He was forever Tweeting about 'big news' and 'exciting news' in the summer, nothing ever came of any of it.

Yes.

A stadium sponsor, got rid of Russ Green, an owner willing to talk to fans although not too much about winding up petitions. There's been a few significant changes but as you say, when something casts doubt over their ownership fans will be as worried as before.

I thought the big news he tweeted about was things like the stadium name, shirt sponsor, Cameron's back on board. I still don't get the turnstile situation mind, I thought the idea was to save money by removing the need for as many turnstile operators. Instead we have ended up with the same number of operators plus about 4 ticket selling staff.

I think it was probably more to stop the handling of cash by turnstile operators as wasnt their people saying they kept being given kids tickets instead of adults etc?

I'm not sure Camerons have ever been off board, they first sponsored the Millhouse stand quite a few years ago and the Cyril Knowles became the Camerons Brewery Stand in 2014 while Hodcroft was still in charge.

I wouldn't call Russ Green leaving completely out of the blue 'exciting news'. Whatever some thought of him I received that news with a slight bit of concern due to how it happened and certainly have reservations about the credentials of the bloke who replaced him.

As for the ground naming, does anyone know how much we actually sold our soul to the little known 'Northern Power and Gas' for?

One of the things I was going to mention the other week was sponsors and advertising boards. Has anyone noticed how in places sparse these are and two how scruffy most of them look. The ones at the bottom of the Millhouse are an embarrassment, with bits of wood botched over them and paint crudely splashed over expired ones. If I was a prospective sponsor I wouldn't want my company name on one of those. So I'm yet to be convinced we're improving commercially.

The turnstile situation is like something that would happen under Gary Gibson. Apparently we have been let down by the people who install them hmmmm what for nearly six months, I bet there's loads of demand for this at this time of year. I have seen no mention of this now for ages.

As you may have sussed by the tone of my post serious alarm bells are sounding in my head, I genuinely hope I am very wrong.

Im not going again till the advertising boards pass a quality inspection.

Thanks for adding that.

It may seem a small thing but's not. If we are club who are going to rely on and need every penny that comes in (something I have no problem with by the way, mega rich owners at this level are few and far between) we have to maximise every possible income stream. I wouldn't buy a board at Pools when they look as scruffy as they do, would you want to? Someone told me the other week that boxes are very poorly attended lately. Again why is this? I keep reading that we're making strides off the field, is this because the chairman is more accessible and seemingly more open than (selectively answering what he wants in no more than 140 characters) the previous incumbent? I see no actual evidence of these strides forward off the field. It's all talk right now.

Maximising revenue is what we'd have to do if we were ever to become a fan owned club it's what any well run club at this level needs to do to be successful so it's the least people like the Chairman and the CEO should be doing whilst taking a decent wage out of the club.

I cant say iv ever noticed how scruffy they are, I dont pay much attention to them and from a distance look ok to me.

Coxall tweeted that the boxes were indeed more busy in the past, due to previous owners dishing them out as freebies.

There was half price offers on for hospitality last weekend. HALF PRICE!

As for the advertising boards, unless you're PJ, you'll only notice them from a distance so can't see the relevance. I doubt boards at a league two ground sell for much so throwing money at making sure you have the best bit of plyboard or whatever could be spent elsewhere.

I share PJ's concern though and it's like all the little doubts have all clicked together after the winding up petitions. Too much smoke for my liking and a cup run would only mask things further if our fears are justified.

One thing someone might be able to answer for me is how Coxall got involved in the first place. Was he tapped up by Russ? Or just fancied owning a club a couple of hundreds of miles away?

Not 100% sure but I think Peter Goldberg may be the actual owner, with Gary Coxhall chairman,maybe part owner?

Goldberg and Coxhall must have thought at least one of these four things:

We are so good at business that we can make a fourth tier football club into a profitable venture even though all the indicators suggest that they are money pits.

Our booming middle eastern recruitment business will receive such a boost from being associated with Hartlepool United that the cost of subsidising the club will be more than covered. We'll go from not having any cash to put in to being able to cover losses no problem thanks to Pools' fame in Dubai.

If we get it for nothing and it has no debts we can have a go at doing this and there isn't really any risk to us. We'll do our best and if the plans pay off we've got an asset and a boost to our reputation. If they don't the club is in debt, not us.

Let's pay nothing for a business that has access to credit but no debts. We can pay ourselves plenty even if the club doesn't generate enough to cover it because we can use the credit facilities. Once the credit runs out we can give the club away or let it go under. Either way we'll be fine.

I don't know which is right but I don't find either of the top two very likely.

Things have gone awfully quiet on the partnership with FC Lahti in Finland.

It's their close season - Pools should be awash with Finnish internationals by now.

Unless the whole thing was just a publicity stunt...

A very good point Malcolm...................and one which could be immediately dealt with by Mr Simpson or Mr Coxhall..............................


We're waiting..................

Maybe we realized how shit their league is and that their players wouldn't get in our reserve side?

[quote="born toulouse"]Goldberg and Coxhall must have thought at least one of these four things:

We are so good at business that we can make a fourth tier football club into a profitable venture even though all the indicators suggest that they are money pits.

Our booming middle eastern recruitment business will receive such a boost from being associated with Hartlepool United that the cost of subsidising the club will be more than covered. We'll go from not having any cash to put in to being able to cover losses no problem thanks to Pools' fame in Dubai.

If we get it for nothing and it has no debts we can have a go at doing this and there isn't really any risk to us. We'll do our best and if the plans pay off we've got an asset and a boost to our reputation. If they don't the club is in debt, not us.

Let's pay nothing for a business that has access to credit but no debts. We can pay ourselves plenty even if the club doesn't generate enough to cover it because we can use the credit facilities. Once the credit runs out we can give the club away or let it go under. Either way we'll be fine.

I don't know which is right but I don't find either of the top two very likely.[/quote

Very good points BT...................and which could be immediately dealt with by Mr Simpson or Mr Coxhall..............................

Go on, it is #1, isn't it?

We're waiting..................

Or the transfer windows shut


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If you knew HRMC were going to wind you up and it would hit the papers, would you not have got in there first to head off all the sh1te that goes with it?

Sure as hell I would.

Whilst Chip talks a lot of sense in his post the fact remains they're struggling. You can't argue they're running the football club comfortably with several winding up petitions in a matter of months.

I'm grateful for what they've done, not just contributing to us still being in the league but I doubt we'd even be in the National league if my understanding of IOR's troubles are correct.
I think the sooner the Trust obtains a stake in the club the better. This is the only way we'll know what's going on at the club.

I agree that there are signs of progress in several areas and Coxhall certainly does a decent PR job. My point is that when they took over we had no real idea what their reasons for wanting to own Pools were. They could have been completely above board or very dodgy and most people said we'll have to wait and see.

Now we've got some worrying signs that at best suggest that running the club is proving harder than they thought and at worst could indicate something more serious. For me, the more often situations occur where what look like financial issues are explained away as admin errors and so on the less convincing it gets. At the most basic level raiding your VAT and tax kitty to pay for other stuff and then stalling on paying up until legal processes become public isn't usually very wise.

Whats being done to boost membership numbers?
Don't take this as a snipe, I'm a member myself.

The ćoming weeks will see the most "action" as far as a Membership Drive goes. The board have another meeting after the Cambridge game next week and that will see the beginning of the drive for members. Won't be long!

Don't get too hopeful that there will be thousands of members, most people are watchers rather than doers. Supporters Direct reckon that a successful Trust needs to have roughly 10% of the average attendance.

In Hartlepool where you have a high level of unemployed, £20 might be a third of a weeks wages so perhaps there needs to be an option for the unemployed. The rest will be a mixture of negatives, snipers and people who are too thick to see the bigger picture and just have a grudge or dislike against a person or an inanimate object like this site.

If we can get over 300 eventually we will have done very well. 200+ is my guess. A Trust does not make the bulk of its funds from membership fees by the way. It's a handy few quid but its not the major resource.

I know that most revenue will come from the Trust's ownership of Venezia and the profits made from Tree alone should see Pools safe.

In your dealings with other trusts, where does the bulk of their start up cash come from or if it suddenly happens do you go cap in hand to local business etc?

All sorts of stuff;
Sportsman dinners
Fans v ex-players games.
Corporate support from local companies
Lottery funding
Council support
This: https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk
Merchandising
Community share issue
And the list goes on........

We could auction off a date with some of the bunkers most desirable...

Is there no bad blood between you?

He'd just shake it off if there was any.

I'll throw my hat into the ring to be auctioned off, starting bid of at least a special kebab from Venezia.

Is that like a meat draw?

He'll not only draw it, he'll spin his meat for the right girl.

I'm starving.

It is disappointing, and stupid that a few people are wasting their time knocking the Trust because of personal dislikes or whatever.

That said, it's the 3,000 or so season ticket holders who don't post on facebook or the boards who are the potential reservoir of support for HUST. There's obviously a lot more awareness raising to do.

I just clicked on the Barnet Supporters Trust link on Supporters Direct to get an idea of what other League Two Trusts are up to and got this:

http://www.bfctrust.co.uk/

WTF? Is flogging kinky boots the way forward?

......