how did those of you on here who were watchin pools in the re election days survive? when we were shit every week and that and were more or less the laughing stock of the football league from what people have said? were all the houses bungalows so it would only hurt like fuck if u tried to jump off and end the pain and suffering of beign a pools supporter there and then?

Like a lot of things in life, we have progressed.

I think you will find the level headed ones on here, generally speaking, are the ones who have lived through the bad old days. It's not as bad as it was then but don't expect us to like it now.

in the 'old days' you knew the players were'nt that good but they did give 100 per cent,what they did'nt have in skill they made up for it with putting the effort in

Pools have been funded in a way we would never have thought possible years ago. Sadly though the people in control of the funds don't know what they are doing and this is what makes it so frustrating. We will never have a better chance of second tier football but were are watching in exasperation while incompetents are running the operation.
THAT is why people are so pissed off. A lifetime of shite followed by real hope - only to realise that the lifetime of shite is exactly what we are going to get while Turner remains.
It is so, so typical of Pools for this to be the case.
OH for Colchester's or Scunthorpe's clue about running a club of our size!!!!!

Should people accept defeat just cos we used to be shit?

I remember the 1-8 score against Plymouth, was one of my first memories of going to pools, I still kept on going maybe because my dad forced me.

Spot on.
There is too much comfort at the club.

what a load of rubbish, i have this arguement with my two uncles all the time (they are about 70) they used to go when watty moore, leo harding etc was playing and they said we had a brilliant team. I just laugh at them and say if they were so brilliant why did we always get hammered and have to apply for re-election all the time. (they recon the "board" wouldnt let them go up for financial reasons).

They even think that that old team would beat the current squad now they live in a dream world, of as John said nostalgic nonesense.

My dad used to rave about the team of the 50s and the 4-3 against the Busby Babes. So that team has to be up there with the teams of recent years. By the time I started going in the mid 60s there was really no expectation that we would win. But as others have said there was generally real graft and effort - just little skill. The short termed successes were greeted with joy but there was little prospect of ongoing success due to the financial mess we were always in.

We've just been through our most successful decade and expectations are just so much higher. Through that time we have played good football and had real team spirit and 'punched above or weight'. We have now assembled a squad of players that everyone was quite excited about at the start of the season and they haven't performed and team spirit and commitment have plummeted.

So the reason that the current lows seem so much worse than historic lows is down to expectations. We know that this current squad is capable of doing so much better. That hasn't always been the case.

I've been going since 1952 so I watched the team of the fifties. They were exciting times and the games were entertaining, because the team was littered with footballers. To this day I have never seen a better player than Tommy McGuigan in a Pools shirt. Always gave of his best. Splod/Compo ask your dad/uncles about Tommy.
We would not have had these players under todays conditions. They would have been offered big money to move on, but we had the maximum wage then. Ken Johnson and Watty Moore could have moved plenty of times and Leo Harden, the flying dustman, was a part timer. George Luke was the star winger.
They were entertaining. Matt Busby, manager of one of the best teams in Europe, said the 4-3 defeat by Man Utd was the most exciting game he had ever watched. If that is not an accolade then what is.
I watched the game against Chelsea ( who were champions of England at the time ), a game in which Tommy Mac ran them ragged, a game in which Roy Bentley( England centre forward ) never got a kick because he spent the entire afternoon in Watty's back pocket. I was behind the goal in the Rink End............my rink end, that is now denied to me.
I remember Newcastle parading the FA Cup around the Vic ( I touched it..what a thrill ) and then took a beating 4-0 ( I think). They just couldn't get near Kenny Johnson that night, I think he got the lot.
Make no mistake, Pools in the fifties could give ANYONE a game. Reputations meant nothing to those lads Are you listening Turner?

It was later on when re elections came prominent...........after the great team was broken up.

I have not lived in the town for thirty two years..........I travel 200 miles round trip to every home game, am still a season ticket holder.

I reckon I have earned the right to be called a Poolie diehard.

I have been worried about my club in the past.............on many occasions...........and I am worried now.

sounds like you have experienced some great matches

I have mate...............and some not so great............I was there on Saturday

Aye, that's the one. You ought to talk to Kenny about it. Magic.
Was it Sunderland we beat 4-0?

And here's me thinking you were one of the young uns on here

Same reason as now It's were i was born and you go to each game hoping they win!!

the bottom line is this fellas..... we will follow Pools all our lives and this is possibly the only opportunity we'll get to actually see the club f-ucking really, I mean REALLY do something great..... something we'll always remember. The play off final is not something really great - it isn't. We lost.
Scunthorpe's play off final last season was really great - they fu-cking WON it!!!
Now if IOR slip away, I will always have the feeling of underachievement when we were getting sell out crowds at The Vic 4 or 5 times a season, in the early part of this decade.
The 10,000 away crowd at Sunderland - hell even in the promotion year we were taking away followings bigger than many Championship clubs, and more than a few Premier League Clubs of the time.
We missed an opportunity but Scott fu-cked it, then we've been spinning around ever since we managed to bounce back at the first time of asking.
What is the point unless once - just once - a football club manages to do something relatively spectacular in its history?
I think after so many years of failure, the desire for this is stronger amongst older Pools fans than anybody - just to see even one season of Championship football!!!
The fan base would be consolidated tremendously I believe if that happened. The opposite is happening at the moment.
There seems to be another agenda at the club other than success on the pitch.
That's what folks are peeved about.

Parmo is right.
I thought we would never get to the front door of the second tier ever again after that great side of the fifties was disbanded, then we turned the century and turned the corner.
The opportunity presented itself, but nothing came of it.
There have been two opportunities ( when we finished 2nd to Derby County in 57 and at Cardiff) to open the second tier door. I have witnessed both of them.............will I get another chance?????? I hope so but I'm not holding my breath.

To go back to the original question, in a nutshell it was rubbish. It was amateur, it was embarrassing but what we did have was that togetherness in shitness, if you follow my drift. I never shirked from the question when I left the town and sometimes had to take spine tingling embarrassment when we got battered yet again.

But we were Pools, we didn't care, we didn't argue about the nuances of FIFA licences and TV replays and we didn't have minute to minute updates, we had the footy mail.

They were much simpler days and we weren't all about stimulus reaction, give us what we want now or we'll do summat else.

Pools was just about all we had except for music and the Bunker reflects that.

and on goal average or something daft like that, I think?

You are right, Phil.
It was a lot quicker the first time.
That was because Ray Middleton, who took over as manager after the sad death of Fred Westgarth, decided that the old guard had to be dismantled and the way forward was to be with youth.
All we had to do was finish in the top half of the third division north to go into the new third tier. Alas we finished in the bottom half and were founder members of the new fourth division, where we performed for forty years with a couple of sojourns up to the third, only to come back down.
Ray Middleton copped the blame for our demise, he should have phased the old guard out gradually. Or so public opinion decreed.
Strange as it may seem but Ray Middleton was an ex goalkeeper, just like Turner.

As for today. We have bounced back more quickly this time but are perilously close to receding again. One point margin last season and people forecasting a struggle this season.

What do we do??????????

A decision has to be made by the owners which way we are heading and how we do that. A winning team, an entertaining team, a team with fight, determination and bottle. All these things are necessary to progress further and, more importantly, to get back the missing fans.
How do we do that???? The only answer as I see it is further investment in the team. Before that is enabled we have to be absolutely certain, as far as humanly possible, that the money will be put to good use by a dynamic management team. That, I'm afraid, rules out the Turner/West combination.
If, and it is always an if, we return to entertaining, winning football, then the crowds will return. This is the best time for Pools to be a championship side. The Smoggies are down on their luck. The south of our region would have a curiosity to give Pools a try, if we were holding our own in the championship.
That to me is the way to the second tier. I just wish I had the financial clout to make it happen. IOR and their oil industry friends have got the financial clout, but seemed to be content just making up the shortfall each year. Well that policy, because of dwindling crowds etc, only means the shortfall is getting bigger. They are now in the position of throwing good money after bad. That can't go on, surely.
The boat needs to be pushed out now.