Did the letter start I'm Jack?

I think the letter has not been published as Hodcroft was passed the letter by a ballboy allowed the letter to blow past him and he has took 4 years to put it on his desk and read it!

Thanks for that, nice read :)

maybe thats why we need a director of sport, to find out who wrote that bastard letter!

Director of post!

You see, the thing is with publishing that in our Centenary Book, is that it just might have opened a whole new can of worms about what happened in Cardiff.

Was it really that wise for the Club to publish that in the book?

Do we really want one of the greatest achievements in our history i.e. getting there to be overshrouded by this new contraversy?

Look, it was a daft letter from some daft get who thinks he/she can see into the future. Hodcroft should have binned it and forgotten it.
Who gives a monkey's left knacker if it's in the book? It's just a snippet of extra info, that's all.
And the word is spelled: controversy, with an 'o', not an 'a'.

It's an easy mistake to make, you know.

What is, being daft?

We all know it was a dodgy pen, I know it, you know it, they know it, everyone knows it.

The whole thing was centered around Sheffield Wednesday going up.

I remember being there seeing it as it happened. Westwood never leant on to him.

It was never a penalty.

It was certainly NOT a red card.

I'm glad you've cleared that up for everyone

Yes it was a penalty & since he was the last man it had to be a red card. If they didnt think it was a conspiracy then why get the police involved?

By the way, Phil Dunn said on here a while back that he had it on good authority 4000 crowds would see you break even or maybe make a profit. Not according to Hodcroft, ir more like 5-6000! And next time you take the piss out of our crowds have a read of this.....

"IN 1982, defender Phil Brown, the club’s PFA rep and current Hull City manager, threatened a players’ strike.

The club’s bank account had been frozen after the High Court backed the Inland Revenue and Brown claimed that three weeks’ wages and five weeks’ bonuses were due and a strike was imminent unless it was swiftly received.

Brown insisted that unless they were paid by 2pm on the afternoon of Friday, April 29 they would not play the game at Halifax that evening. They didn’t get paid, but played and lost 3-2. Pools’ next home gate was just 804."

I'm sure in the early 80's your crowds were comparable, and ours would be if we were the worst team in the country, we take the piss because of your ridiculous ground. I fail to see your point, have Darlo never had a sub 1,000 gate!? Do you think we don't know about our own clubs history and those dark days need pointing out to us!?

As for the penalty it would have been if Westwood had made any contact with Talbot, he dived. I see the little shit played against your collective of kids and cloggers yesterday...

Spot on PoK

Mr Gaunt is wrong yet again, God I hate conspiracy theories.

I nearly forgot! Yloop's an idiot, who offers nothing to this board; just snipes all the time

Not the time or the place, you have a PM

You wont find me arguing about whos had shit crowds PJ, its just a bit hypocritical of some of you lot who seem to think you've never had them either, probably most of them being bandwagon jumpers who didnt know Pools existed before 1998. As for yesterday I didnt realise that he was playing, I was too pissed off with gettin drenched & watching a shitty refereeing display yet again. Our kids & cloggers have played alot worse this year & won!

Can you please explain what's wrong with my post? Thanks.

Point 1: "We all know it was a dodgy pen". Was it not a little suspect? Is a pen usually given for something like that?

Point 2: "The whole thing was centered around Sheffield Wednesday going up." what I was getting at was the media. How much attention was put on us compared to us? All the build up with the media was about Sheffield Wednesday working their way and reclaiming where they sohuld be.

Also, can you please point out where I have previously been wrong?

Also, can you please where I said it was a conspiracy?

That would be helpful in me improving my behavour to suit your needs. Thanks!

Not being funny here but Sheff Wed are regarded as a big club, rightly or wrongly, and they were always going to get the lions share of the media build up. Its typical of the big club small club mentality. I still say it was a definate penalty though

I've never been able to watch it again, despite still having the whole coverage taped, so maybe you're right, but you'll never convince us that we weren't robbed!!

Interestingly in the recent interviews with KH, he thinks that had we gone up that day that we could have stayed up. He wasn't giving anything else away, but surely that must indicate that IOR would have been increasing their investment in the club to keep us in the Championship?

I know what you mean, Ive never watched the Peterborough match at Wembley either since. According to what Hodcroft said in the Echo, they wouldnt have needed to invest that much more. However I think he would probably be wrong on that score.

No Phil, Im not desperate lol. Just pointing out where you're wrong! Not often you are though!

Even you have to admit 1800 is a damn sight better than 800! Like I said before we've both suffered from shit crowds so neither can claim the high ground on this point.

Well when the club gets screwed over twice in the last 10 years its not hard to see why we are where we are. IF IOR even decided enough was enough then whats the chances you'll be back where you spent the majority of your history? I guess there would be crowds in the 90s that werent exactly massive either but Im not sad enough to trawl through your records to point them out too, it just this one stood out in that Echo article and theres been plenty piss taking regarding our crowds lately. I'd reckon we'd both agree IOR have been good for Pools, its just a shame that your crowds arent at a level the investment deserves.

IOR have been fantastic and hopefully will be around for many years to come.
As you say, if it wasn't for IOR god knows where we would be now.
I'm actually surprised IOR are still around considering the awful crowds we are getting now.
This town makes me foooking sick, they just don't realise how good it could be if we got half decent crowds.

There was a interesting letter in the Memory Lane section of the Mail last night. It was the first part of an article written in 1957, about Ken Johnson. One of the things he mentions is that the regulars are getting behind the club and players, but the moaners seem to come from the extra fans coming into the ground. Nothing much changes does it, except then the 'regulars' numbered 8,000 and the moaning newbies were taking the crowds up to 11/12,000.

The size of the crowds back in the day are interesting. Pools record crowd to this day is 17'000 odd. That same season we played Darlo twice, winning one and losing one. The crowds were roughly 14k for each game. Maybe there was less alternative entertainment in those days.

No Sky TV, or any TV probably and not so easy to run up the road to watch the Mags or Mackems or even Smoggies.

I said then and I'll say to the day I die, there was a big fat brown envelope flying around that day, if not several. The thing that convinced me was Scooty's condescending interview on the 'Into The Millenium' DVD.

Work it out. 'The only way we'll beat these stubborn fookers is if they're a player down and we get a penalty.' Step up Phil Crosby....

Sue me you crimps, I'm in South East Asia

'Nuff said.

the problem with Hartlepool is indeed the majority of the people who live in the place. Inbred school dropout tracksuit clad single mothers on benefits scrounging rarf smackhead burgling rarfs and doyles.
And that's just the kids.

Publicity stunt to sell more books.

Simple.

You are actually on the wind up aren't you

First i and many others have heard of it then.

First i and many others have heard of it then.[/quote]


Haway man, you're kidding? [/quote]


Nope and even soem friends at the club never heard anything about it when i told them today.

Nope and even soem friends at the club never heard anything about it when i told them today.[/quote]


See Poll...I can catagorically say that amongst my Pools-going/Pools interested circle it's been common knowledge for several, if not all 4 years.[/quote]


Please tell me your not starting a poll so you can be all smug that you knew before other people?

I first heard about it not long after, someone fairly prominent at the club told us about it when we were in the boxes one match.

Some plan to sell a few books a book that four years ago hadn't even been thought of!! Theirs being overly cynical and then just making yourself look daft, I think you've crossed the line

I hope not.

Although really, I don't like the fact that this letter was kept from us until now.

For fucks sake someone shoot me dead.

He's brilliant!

I thought the poll was referring to the letter that certain players - who are still closely connected to the club allegedly put together to get rid of Neale Cooper.

I have never heard of the letter that KH is on about....

Has it? by who?

So if it's been common knowledge for 4 year how come it's never, ever been brought up by anyone ever until now?

So it aint been brought up for 4 years and you think the fact it just came out now before a book release is coincendental? Give your head a shake.

Like the family of someone on their deathbed, in this case Darlo, the remaining supporters gather round , start a wailing and a gnashing and say silly things...the lights fading on Darlo and there's no way back this time.

I have to admit I've known about the "alleged " letter for many years along with many people I go to games with, and believed it to be common knowledge. I say alleged due to fact that although I've known about it, like probably everyone on here who saying they've known about, apart from people in the club and the police I doubt anyone has actually seen it.

Why Pools didn't actually release it officially is anyone's guess, but the simple fact is that it has been known to many Pools fans.

Is anybody gonna do a cut and paste on here for me?

Thank you for that- very interesting reading!

Exactly.

It's all very well a few fans finding out through the grapevine, but anybody who didn't know anything was still in the dark.