Stop being so fcking dramatic you big poof!!

There's two sides to this argument, equal numbers on both sides, no-one is jumping on anyone. Playing the victim all the time makes you look a bit silly.

Im not being dramatic, merely pointing out that a few on here wont miss an opportunity to jump on anyone, and be so eager to do so that they wont even bother to read the post properly

Just age related, dont really remember much behind the scenes from them days.

The usual response to anyone commenting anything negative on IORs reign is to say "what proof do you have?" "how do you know that?" "thats just hearsay" etc etc

Same goes to Gibsons reign, is it a fact that he was taking money etc?

The thing is though that Football is a BUSINESS. Most, if not all chairman are in it to make money. Gibson will have been no different im sure. Yes, he will have took money out of the club, no question, but why shouldn't he have???? He had the audacity to own a nice car. Big deal. Few chairman drive around in 20 year old escorts. What made him so much worse than other chairmen?

And you cant ever compare him to hodcroft because its IOR who own pools, not Ken.

Might I suggest YOU re-read my post without the usual see what you want to see and disregard the rest.
I was merely pointing that if he'd been around at the time he'd have understood .... and to be honest, if he hadn't comprehended he wasn't very popular with a lot of supporters it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together and draw the obvious conclusion over his invitation.

It would help if you knew what you were talking about, your description sounds like Mother Gary of Clacutta ... with a nice car.
Where you there at the time ...?

Fair enough, apologies if I misread your post.

I still think people should give the guy some slack. Like you say, it was a rollercoaster ride but was entertaining. I got hooked on pools while he was chairman along with many others. We have always been struggling at the foot of the 4th division, its not all attributable to Gibson. Promotion in the 90/91 season was a great achievement and I don't begrudge the guy having a nice lifestyle, nice car or whatever.

Gibson did have a nice house, lifestyle, car but he used money from the football club to fund it and very nearly took the club to the wall.
this is what the fans remember him for because he took us that close to the brink and showed no remorse doing, as though it was everyone else's fault.
at the time he gave the impression that the fancy car meant a lot more to him than a football club in Hartlepool.

It was exciting.It was a reller coaster. We brought in players who must have been on a good wack - Saville, Emerson etc. GThose of us who had been going for years before this couldn't remember anything as good. Muc h of this was under the Gibson regime. Yes it all hit the buffers and ended in tragedy - almost disaster for Pools, but I don't think Gibson came out of it smelling of roses either. BUT at the time it was exciting , and as i said in my earlier post, Gibson had every right to be there. Clearly some totally disagree but that's my opinion so get over it!

I was only a nipper at the time so I didnt know exactly what was happening behind the scenes but then as Tree points out, who did apart from Gibson and those at the club? People dont like judgements being made about IOR without facts but people seem to be doing the same about GG.

If he was really the anti-christ who did nothing for the club then I don't believe he would have turned up the other night.

Let bygones be bygones, I think im right in saying that there were more supporters going to pools when he was there than there are now under IOR. It cant have been all bad. The gambles he took didnt work in the long run but there was no point just sitting at the foot of the 4th division forever

Utter Bollocks. Our crowds in 1990-91 hovered around 2400 until the last couple of games.

And that's one of my points. Gibson gambled - but didn't get the crowds he anticipated. He could have just let things drag along like they had for years but he TRIED to do something different. He gave us some excitement - and we know it went badly wrong in the end and he was to a large extent to blame for thet.He should have realised the club was losing money hand over fist - and cut his cloth accordingly, but he didn't do this. We know what happened as a result, but at the time I was exciting.

this should be the final word on this matter - Gibson held the club's very existence on a knife point when Harold Hornsey wanted to rescue the remains of HUFC. Gibson wanted an extortionate amount of cash to fuck off, cash which Harold wanted to put into the club. The club was worthless as all the best players had been sold. Harold redeveloped the ground and handed over the cash to Betty Knowles after the testimonial game, after Gibson looks likely to have trousered that cash as well.
The man simply would not fu-0ck off and seemingly would not have done had Harold not caved in to his demands - because Harold's only intention was to preserve Hartlepool United FC and rebuild it - because HE was a Poolie. Money that should have gone to the club went to a parasite.
If Harold was still alive to set the story straight I can guarantee there would have been no Garry Gibson there on Thursday night. I cut him out of the Pools promotion book of the time (the final 4 pages) because he was not worthy of being in it after what he did. The promotion squad was largely already here when Gibson took over from John Smart. Cyril Knowles was the final piece in that jigsaw, followed by Murray who was also already at Pools as commercial manager. He then sacked Murray and appointed Viv fucking Busby - the man is a cu-nt and no mistake

wasnt saying he did things the write way was just pointing out that under him there was some great times,the first great times id known following pools,sadly due to him bad times soon followed but it was good while it lasted..

Gibson was a chancer and in it for egotistical reasons. He didn't care about Pools, it wasn't the club he supported, it was like a game of monopoly for him.

The Cyril Knowles cheque was an utter disgrace, the way he tried to block every attempt by Harold Hornsey to save the club was disgusting. Anyone who believes he was doing the best for the club, your argument stops there. If he was gambling for a brighter future for Pools then why did he not just step aside and agree a compromise deal to allow HH to save the club.

Why did he sell the Hutch sell on clause for a pitence, surely there was another way to raise £10k or whatever it was. That sell on clause cost us hundreds of thousands in the long run, and then he sacks Murray and brought in Busby removing the principle we had of playing football.

I read an article in the N Echo a couple years back where he talked about being out of work and how he goes to the local supermarket to buy the out of date food to survive on. I nearly cried laughing at the big lump of shit.

I recall the players not getting paid for several weeks towards the end when Gibson was in charge & wasn't he the one who brought in bloody Viv Busby after sacking Murray.
Having said that that under Gibson we achieved the '91 promotion & didn't we finish at our highest ever in the footy league pyramid the following season up to that point in the club's history. This was the same season Darlo went straight back down.

Don't forget Fellas it was Gibson who brought in Cyril & then put Murray in charge.
Gibbo was chairman from 89-94 if I remember correctly.

We had a few good years under Gibbo before things started going belly-up.

Were the stories really true about him renting an apartment at Bamburgh Castle & occasionally getting a helicopter down to games!

Suspect he was more likely still living at his Mum & Dads in Wheatley Hill.

Yes, Gibson nearly took us into foreclosure but we should remember the good times too.

Probably a cnt as noted above but for a while at least a succesful cnt for us and long before we'd ever heard of IOR.

Happy memories of matches in the chequered kit as worn by Johnrose, Saville, Tait, R Cross, P Cross, Emerson etc.
Paul Wratten was crap mind.

It's clear that if it hadn't been for Harold Hornsey things would have been possibly been much worse for Pools after he bought Gibbo out & Harold paved the way for the IOR era.

Gibson however did bring us our 2nd ever promotion & 3 consecutive seasons at the next level,something we've only just bettered by staying up last season.

Think it took some guts him turning up at the re-union.

He's stiill a cnt for what he nearly did to the club but I wonder what our history would have been like if he hadn't had a go & tried to make us a more succesful club.

not to put too fine a point on it... but if it wasn't for Harold there would be a housing estate or some such on the site of the Vic right now, with AFC Hartlepool playing in the Wearside League

This is all because Gibson had a beard!

Tell the sensible people who don't have a facebook account what this is

Some fantaastic photos of a great night.