Coxhall's vision for how that club will progress isn't really much different to what Hodcroft and Greens was. My mate was shown plans by Russ Green about 7 years ago (way before the masterplan bollocks) during what became to be known as a 'tickly belly' session. What stopped them? They wanted to own the ground. They didn't involve housing but a big stand at the Rink End of the ground incorporating retail units and a physiotherapy clinic with future plans for a hotel. I suppose they needed the ground as an asset to secure the funds to make it happen.

I get that I can see that completely but surely IOR/Hodcroft would have had to borrow money to fund the project or it was a complete non starter and that is why they needed to own the ground.

I also don't think Coxhall could have borrowed anywhere near the amount of money required to fund a big project like this (yet) without something like the ground to borrow this against, the material assets can't amount to that much surely?

Don't forget the other parties involved. Access Finance and their chocolate obsessed 'consultant' along with Sage Investments. Between them they could get the funding together but to what end? I don't for one second think there will be a hotel under the Rink End.

The last time I looked at Companies House there were still a few shares held individually by the great and the good of Hartlepool, a remnant of fundraising years ago. Worth diddly squat and no doubt a few dusty framed share certificates kicking around if anybody fancies buying one. No influence as with 99% owned by JPNG no effective voting rights (and no AGM!)

I also noted we changed our accounting reference date from December to June which is why the first set of accounts JPNG will file will be delayed until 31 March and be for 18 months. May have been done to tie in with season end. As we still remain a "small" company the abbreviated accounts they do file will tell us very little.

Coxhall should have concentrated on running the football club first and foremost, not pie in the sky developments that will never see the day.
I would rather see investment in the playing squad, improving facilities for the fans, offering hospitality etc, trying to get the club to self finance itself.
Not borrowing money from all over the place to pay bills that are overdue and promising the fans some great big master plan that will never see the light.

Also how did Coxhall buy the club? Borrowed money? If so what against?
Also is it possible to see the Fit and Proper test results that were carried out when Coxhall took over?

Where is the report? Is it available through the freedom of information act?
I am sure many would like to see it.

I hope your just playing Devils advocate here a bit kev. Your sounding very much like that women at charlton, who referred to the fans as customers.

We are not customers, we are fans, this is our club, the owners, the managers, the players... they'll come and go. But we will remain.

I want a club for my kids to be able to come and watch in a few years.

I don't think what chip is asking is unreasonable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A little, yes of course. But people expecting full disclosure of the financial side of things are deluded.

I sit on a board of directors, I get full disclosure, and so I should, but the rest of the employees at my place of work do not, let alone the 'customers' of my company.

Published accounts are public, the rest is not. Similarly, I have no issue in contract lengths and transfer fees being kept private.

We are hocked to the hilt, but we have a lot of assets and a damn good reputation.

I completely understand Chip, I share your concerns by the way. I'd much prefer the focus was on a winning football team and average gates of 5500+ that would surely see the football club close to self sustainable.

I would of course like to see non football activity produce money for team building, but lets make some solid progress on the grass first, that's surely the easiest way to bring money into a football club.

The Bunker has always been like that despite what others think....FACT!!!!

Just playing devils advocate here a little bit, and thinking of a hypothetical situation, maybe in support of Coxall.

Here goes:

Coxall has stated that pools were (x)millions in debt when he took over.

Assuming he didnt have THAT cash to pay off the debt, maybe the debt was owed to IOR.

Maybe a payment plan was put in place to pay IOR back in installments?

Bear with me:

Could it be that Coxall decided to take out a loan to pay off IOR, knowing that the repayments for the loan could be significantly cheaper than what he was paying to IOR? Thus making more cash available to pay off other debts......HMRC etc. This would also partly justify his comments that Pools were now almost self sufficient.

This would make sense to me.

Except of course, it was the owner owing IOR, wheras now Coxall has switched the debt to the football club.

Maybe the second loan is for this huge announcement to come in within the next 5 days.

All hypothetical and I have absolutley nothing to back this theory up.

That bit about the 14 million debt was more bullshit though. IOR had put 14 million into the club while it was the owner. The payback on this gift when they sold/gave the club to JPNG. They had structured the subsidy as a debt which was then transferred to another one of their companies where it was written off and became 14 million they didn't have to pay tax on. Not bad business considering they'd 'given' the money to Pools.

The other thing is that the slump on the pitch in the later years of IOR came because the subsidy stopped. Ken Hodcroft made it very clear that the club had to be self-sufficient. He said it was because the council wouldn't sell him the ground and that he needed that to generate revenue through hotels, hospitality etc. That might or might not be true but the background to it was the Norweigan authorities' keen interest in Berg Larsen's tax affairs and a global drop in oil prices that had a particularly big impact on companies, like IOR/Dove Energy who specialised in difficult to get oil from unstable regions and wells that other people had finished with.

JPNG took over a club that was more or less breaking even and had no debt. Now it has at least two secured debts, one via a consultant who is actually banned from running a company, and it has had a number of winding up orders against it from HMRC. Maybe we should trust Gary on all of this because he has a great plan that will see the club alright in the end and this really is just a transitional season. Or maybe we should be very afraid because he doesn't give straight answers, even to questions you would expect him to have no qualms about, and his background with JPNG and Peter Goldberg/Arber is very murky indeed. For me, as long as he just keeps churning out the cheeky chappy stuff the alarm bells will keep ringing.

dont disagree with any of that, but I was talking hypothetically giving GC the benefit of the doubt with his statement.

Another answer he gave is extremely worrying.

The bit about the bumpy road ahead.

Forgive me for being cynical here, but it could be suggested he said that, to stop the detectives from taking any further credit for future findings, as he has already hinted there is more ahead.

But hey, reading all of the social media sites, there are plenty of people that think he has been great, and all is now OK. Maybe they know more than we do, and maybe they are all right?

I'm sure something was said about them starting with a clean slate and the 'debt' had been wiped. Now it's them who cleared the debt not IOR?

Just rediscovered this article

Clearly answers one question:
I would like to ask if HUFC are debt-free?
Les
Yes, totally!

There's also a bit where he says Peter Goldberg was the financial guy and also something about if he didn't have the finances to fund the club he'd look a right plum.

So we are onto this question....

Reporter

Gary Coxall

Do we stand with Gary and put as much money into the club as possible, through encouraging bigger crowds, spending inside the ground and at the clubshop (ran by an external company, not the best idea?), food and drink on a match day, player sponsorship etc etc.

Or are we leaving him to it as he says all will be fine?

I think he mentioned the £14 million in 'debt' to highlight that the club was losing money under the previous owners and he's trying to put things in place that will make club self sufficient. I would question how much the club has been losing in the last five years. We can be self sufficient without throwing the dice with high interest loans surely?

I also think a little too much is being into the 'bumpy ride' comments. I think that is more in reference to our League position and it being as he keeps saying (and said last year) a 'transition season'.

Agreeing totally with PJ, the £14mill was just mentioned to highlight state under previous regime. People going overboard trying to read into that part of his interview imo.

By the way I had someone come up to me in the Butchers this morning saying what a great thread this was. Well reasoned and debated.

Investing in players is a big punt though isn't it. It's OK for clubs who can afford Big Famous Names, and if the signing doesn't work out the player can be just sold on, maybe even at a profit.
At our end of the scale it's a bit different though.
I'm not saying I don't want decent players brought in, but the fact is it's about as flaky an investment as you can get if there are transfer fees involved.

Well there is a lot at steak, Chip doesn`t mince words and PJ puts things bacon track, GC is just a chump heading for the chop, whilst ptbap does braise some strong points and gives us something.to stew over.

I was in the Morrisons at dinner time n I had 2 people come up to me today to congratulate me on the quality of this thread.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At the Salad bar?

Strangely I was at Morrisons Butchers today and 3 people congratulated me on the thread!

I was in the sewing shop at the fens today and I complimented them on the thread