No

I wish the protest had been better supported, and I hoped people like Katcha and Bob would back it, but I don't think it helps to suggest that anybody who disagreed with the idea has a dodgy motive. The only way forward is to keep arguing people round and you can't do that by calling them names or saying that they've been bought and paid for with a few free tickets or by working with the club.

I didn't see that form of protest working. I have passed my opinion on an approach to take in relation to this.

I wasnt actually suggesting that about Katcha in the mould of the comments at Bob being a clubman etc. Was just a general question as got impression he did.

None of us..Katcha, Bob, Mad John or Me "work at" or "work for" The Club, but all of us do some "work" for the Club. Its unpaid "work" but odd times we can get "rewarded" with maybe a ticket for the game etc..its the general way that small clubs work..very few can afford to employ teams of people to come up with this stuff.

I do quite a bit of Media Work (Programme stuff, going on radio, items for other clubs websites/programmes etc) and consider it an honour to do it, I love doing it and would miss it if I didnt do it.

I paid in at the gate on Saturday as I didnt want to be seen criticising IOR/Hodcroft on a Messageboard, protesting, yet still getting a "free" ticket for the game. I will continue to do that until IOR/Hodcroft speak to their customers.

What they are doing by staying silent is showing a lack of respect for us, Pools fans.

No but that already been answered by another poster.

I think you'll find I have given my "support" to some sort of protest, and my thoughts about who should be involved with any protest. I stand by what I've said and won't or need to repeat it yet again.

Fair play!!

. Neither do I but I do know it works how Phil explained it..

Nowt will happen while 25 of you chew at each other on here and 25 of you watch the golf on the telly, saying that's your form of protest, without a viable option.

IOR out. OK then what?

I said yesterday, and I haven't yet read the diatribe, that maybe a kickstarter fund to buy IOR out is a viable solution. No doubt I will encounter that thread in a few minutes, but has anyone got the bollocks to kick it off?

Niramax anyone?

I know elvis and bob both in passing and to have a pint and natter with like bob at Exeter last year when I was on my tod and had a few with bob at end of match the only way I view both is same as me having wanting the best for the club. They might not agree with what that is but at end of the day we all want pools to do well and not us to go down. People have lost sight what's important and are bickering amongst themselves like a married couple. Just because people don't agree doesn't mean we don't all want best. I am young but still remember the 90's when we where dog shit and the highlight was beating Birmingham when they where flight in in our division 1-0 I think. We all knew what to expect but the current owners are treating us like fools and hiding behind Fflint when we all know it's crap. Come out say we have nowt and we are doing what we can people will support us then instead of treading water in a swimming pool with a leak. Let not turn on each other we all have pools at heart. I do t get to many games you can call me a splitter if you like but pools will always be my team and I am proud to say so

Splitter!!

We will have owners after ior just like we did before, not sure why spender can't see that.

We haven't been owned for 100 years by the same group of norweigens.

Crack on though spender with the usual who will come in after ior bollox, they aren't spending any money so to answer your question anyone could own us n do that.


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Who is saying IOR out???

Certainly not me.

Pools being a fan owned club is only viable if you want us to be a non league outfit. We haven't got the fanbase or the money to buy the club. Portsmouth's CEO was on Talksport today and even them with 15,000 regulars won't get past League One with a fan owned model and he said if the fans want them to ever get back into the Championship are at some point going to have to sell on the club to someone with a bit more clout.

Also looking at all the cringeworthy bollocks and people having cheap shots at each other on various forums and social media sites over a proposed protest can you imagine these people coming together and buying into a fan owned club It would be an utter farce, every bit as embarrassing as some of the shit I've read this week. The elected board would be sniped at and called worse than shit by people jealous that they weren't part of it. I would rather the club folded than go down that route.

Norwegians mate. Start a kickstarter, I'm right in with that one. Shit, or get off the pot.

Of course we will have new owners after IOR. Just look at Darlington, they managed to find new owners after George didn't they.

About 40 people on here.

I agree with you, it's absurd that they sneer at VAT, stage payments and the rest so I'm saying, raise the cash, take the club and deal with it. Of course they never will. It's only a week since I was accused of never having the 25 year career in accountancy that I had.

It's like that scene in The Holy Grail. 'She's a witch, burn her.......'

I don't think about 40 people on here have said they want IOR to go. One or two might have.

That wasn't the focus of the protest.

Invest in the team, talk to the fans, or sell the club. Because if they aren't going to do the first two things what's the point in them being here? People are fed up and rightly so.

Let's be honest here, this sounds like semantics. We all suspect the reasons for the lack of investment, so it's a bit naive to expect the response to any organised protest to be more investment. The best we'll get is an honest appraisal, a bit of which has already been hinted at. There may be some who would be happy with this (we've no money to invest now, but will have IF all the bollocks is sorted) but there are others who won't want to take the risk (as the 'if' in that last bracketed 'bit' leaves a great deal to chance). But to pretend, right now, that there's a choice in 'spend or go', is to avoid reality, in the same way that those who want to give IOR more time are failing to see the big picture.

I don't think it is just semantics Mr Fatman. I've defended IOR regularly in the past. I've been critical of some decisions but generally speaking I think they've been good owners over the years. I'm no longer convinced about that and there seems to be every likelihood that we're about to be financially fair played out of the league.

What if I'm wrong though? What if IOR aren't subsidising the club on a large scale anymore but are planning to invest at least a decent chunk of recent transfer earnings? The only way to find out is to ask them to prove it - might as well judge them on their actions as there aren't any words anyway. If they can't or won't spend there is no point in them being here - who wants a sugar daddy with no sugar?

I think you've just proved my point; we all hope that cash will be forthcoming, but, if you asked us to predict, we all think that it isn't anymore. It was great while it lasted, but it feels like the endgame. Again, I hope I'm wrong (and I am a pessimist at the moment) but it doesn't feel that way.

Hodcroft seems to be at more home games than he used to be in recent times actually, I'd say he's at most these days.

At least Hodcrofts team are getting humped again tonight

Got back from a week in Barrow on Friday night to be asked "...do you fancy going tomorrow...?" ....... so we all gave it a miss and I went out shopping with the wife.
I don't feel I missed anything...... but I'd forgotten how boring shopping is .

I was believing you until you said you went shopping with the wife. It's either a lie or aliens have abducted Snowy.

If ior are not willing to spend money and the club is to be forced to live on income alone then what is the point of having ior??? They aren't good owners, ken allegedly interferes too much, they don't communicate with the fans, ken has alienated the council allegedly. We don't even get half decent players coming over for Norway anymore which was one of the initial perks. The vic is getting run down, staff are being laid off, jobs for the boys still stands though. They bring nothing to the club any longer. Plenty of people would be willing to take over under the same principle that they won't have to put any of their own money into the club and we will continue the trend of being a selling club. If ior aren't willing to spend then fuck off. If they are then start spending asap and have the courtesy of letting the fans know what's going on.

I don't think any staff have been laid off, more got sick and left.

Grave has a point if we are going to run a self sufficient club then what's the point of ior?

But what if this situation isn't permanent and has potential to improve? If they came out and said this is how it will have to be in the short term but we are fully committed and still care about the club and will so for the long term future of it how would people feel?

Well said that man!

Not gonna happen though. I feel as though we're in the football equvalent of a maximum security old peoples twilight home.... going nowhere, told nothing, fed pap and quietly waiting for the end.... I expect nothing to change.

In a long winded way, that's the question I asked. The problem is that we're awaiting a potential, and if it doesn't materialise we're out of the league with little hope of returning.

Seems to me that IOR are giving us the perfect example of shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted

or are they just getting a message out to a few gullible people they know will make it known, thus taking the heat off them again.

And my god there are some gullible folk out there.

Lets face it, if there is money out there, are they waiting until we reach rock bottom to spend it? Is that a plan?

Who's gullible, it's a confirmation of what a few of us have been saying for years.

We aren't really owned by IOR, they are the just part of Berge Larsens overall group of businesses. He is/was the money behind Pools. The much talked about extra £1 million a year. Hodcroft clearly doesn't have the money to bankroll a football club in fact he is taking a wage from the club. The only money available is what has brought in itself through player sales, 3,000 season ticket sales and sponsorship. That situation is only going to improve when/if Larsen comes back onto the scene or we find a new source of investment.

If you were the owner and had had your fingers well and truly burned with expensive disasters such as Salano and Howard in the past, you would be saying to the Manager take your time (within reason) and get this one right, because the next signing of a forward(or forwards) is the one that our Management team needs to get spot on, if they don't we're all well and truly f......

The people being told this by Hodcroft, and getting the message out to people like you hear it.

They are the gullible ones. Doing Hodcrofts dirty work.

I have fallen out with people on here over the last few years, partly because I was one of those defending IOR, when others were suspicious.

They were right to be suspicious.

I wouldnt trust words from Hodcroft even if he was fastened to a lie detector at the time.

So what is this overall evil masterplan?

I don't see it.

They aren't ever going to make any money from Pools, if they aren't interested anymore nothing is stopping them from just walking away. As I said it's been my theory for years I've been saying it on here for years nobody has told me anything.

Spend or go.

I have no idea but if I was a betting man:

They have transferred around £10m of debt to HUFC. Or they have turned their spend into a debt to be paid back.

They are letting pools drift along at rock bottom, until either

a. They find someone daft enough to sell to, to recoup their losses.

b. Their industry picks up, or rather their business picks up in that industry, and they become liquid again.

b. seems unlikely with the owners current problems.

IOR or whatever business owns them, will never sell if they keep contributing to the debt. So they have basically cast Pools adrift, saddled with IOR's debt.

This is not fact. Just me suggesting possible scenarios.

You see People keep saying, somehow in their defence, what can IOR get out of letting pools drift along.

Well I would turn that around, and say, what do IOR gain by allowing Pools to be threatened with relegation? Its only going to result in grief and embarrassment for their business. Yet here we are.

They were never going to get the investment back and can't possibly be daft enough to imagine that they will now. The on-going subsidy must have made sense for a mixture of tax management and hospitality reasons. According to a bloke I know who is based here but works in oil in scary bits of North Africa the business is doing fine and he can't see how Dove Energy/IOR could be failing to do alright (he doesn't know them or work for them though).

Tax related troubles might explain the lack of cash but isn't it more likely that Hodcroft meant what he said about the ground? Without ownership no more cash gets spent. In which case transfer revenues mostly go on running costs, staff who leave don't get replaced, the condition of the ground slips backwards, the squad gets progressively smaller and cheaper and, sooner or later, Pools slide out of the league. That's why I've moved to saying spend or go - I think I understand what they were trying to do with the plan to develop the ground and increase turnover but I don't want to see the club's league status sacrificed to teach the council a lesson.

Particularly as I doubt the council care a jot.

Which is shame on them, cos clearly past council leaders understood the value of a football league club to the town. The corruption in this current council is contemptible, even by council standards. They only care about themselves

I think it speaks volumes when Stuart Drummond was Mayor, Pools had the ideal opportunity to buy the ground. What happened? My opinion is he saw straight through IOR and rejected their proposals. I don't see IOR having HUFC best interest at heart. They make noise about owning the ground as if it's the bee all and end all of this football club, and its not!

Why not invest in the team before the ground ( because to be fair it's not as if it's in bad nick ). Look at Darlo, they did it the way IOR want to do, ground first team second, and look where they are now!!

End of the day, we are where we are. Our only hope for the short term is to get a manager who can cajole or terrify the squad to perform.

Because a different owner might take more money out of the club or badly manage the finances to an extent where the club actually went bust?

Or they might communicate with the fans and who knows even stick a bit of money in themselves?

Imagine that ey ripper!

I'm sick of IOR. I hate the way they run my club.

Where's the real Ripper what have you done with him?

I think Ken's hacked his account.

I think he's been got at by the club.


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