Right then, no new signings, no takeover, no new manager and no £10m. So now all that is over we all have a choice: We either continue whinging and complaining or we get back to supporting Hartlepool United.

A lot of us, myself included, have been guilty of being drama queens over recent times but it really is time to get over it.

The problem with message boards is that the magnify things be they good or bad, with people feeding off each others emotions. Rumours get told and retold and somewhere along the way get exaggerated. All these recent stories about this offer or this reason for not signing someone or what the fat bloke said down the pub are all completely unverified. I defy anyone to come up with a single post that is backed up by a statement by anyone in authority at Pools. Numerous stories purported to have come from within Victoria Park and 'FACT' have turned out to be complete bollox. Whilst some may not have been made up there is liberal amounts of guesswork going on and nobody has come up with anything of substance.

Lets face it, IOR keep most things under their hat so even these sources withing Victoria Park are guessing. That guesswork is then passed on to those 'in the know' who tell someone else and it ends up on the boards. Remember the old first world story when a message was send from the front line "send reinforcements we're going to advance" was the original message and after being passed verbally from runner to runner the message got to HQ "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance". This in my opinion is exactly whats been going on with us recently.

We all know that Ken Hodcroft is pissed off with Pools and the fans. Do we really? What tangible evidence do we have?

We all know that the take over people have walked away for [insert reason] Do we really? What tangible evidence do we have?

We all that Pools didn't even try to keep O Donovan. Do we really? What tangible evidence do we have?

Etc, etc, etc.........


What we do know is that Pools are in for a tough season and in amongst all the uncertainty there is one indisputable fact; Pools have a better chance of surviving with the fans (and the messageboards) giving out positive and supportive vibes rather than tearing down the walls at ever turn. The players read these boards and being told that they're shit doesn't do an awful lot for their confidence.

I've been as guilty as anyone and more guilty than most with clown banners etc but we all really do need to get back to being supporters (look it up).

Spot on.

so does that mean an apology is in order for all the 'rose tinteds' who have been doing this for nearly 2 years?

i think not

Whatever.

Agree with mr i.

you are about two years to late mate
fact (1) pools where doing fine with out turner crowds up results up and really good players and also attacking football and also we sold players for good money and one hell of a buz going around the ground
fact (2) turner well and truly shagged two teams and was out of work UB40 so why the fkin hell did we need a director of sport gross pay more than the manager at the time Turner by the way would never be happy untill he became the manager of this club again
fact (3) every player turner as signed to date would never get a game for any other team in this league or the one below
fact (4) Turner and IOR have lost not just the die hard supporter but look around Hartlepool how many kids do you see now with a blue and white shirt on enough said

Great post IOR have there faults but they are our lives blood and maybe deserve some respect Chris Turner is not the man for the job but he will not be the first bad manager or the last bad manager we will see.
So i'll give the club i've grew up supporting the last 46 years my full support this season and forever.

Unfortunately Seaton Blue toes does make some valid points.

No amount of positivity amongst ourselves will make up for the fact that we have an incompetent arrogant clown in charge of the team. Its not the responsibility of the fans to get the club, players and management to raise their game. The team has to get the fans onside and the club have been a shambles for a couple of years now both on and off the pitch, it no surprise to many how we are suddenly in the shiit and an awful lot of fans have stopped going.

Perhaps if the club started giving the fans what they want (a proper manager for starters isnt too much to ask is it?!) there may be a great deal more optimism.

A decent manager can get a bunch of poor players playing well. Thats what needs to be next. The fans and optimism will return. How can anyone be optimistic with Turner in charge?

didnt we get promoted from league 2 with turner as director of sport?

I'm not saying for one second we need one, i dont think we do, but we did go up with him directing all kinds of sport that season.

Excellent post Mr I.

I would put myself above you in the "Drama queen" stakes, I'm more guilty of that than you, as i said somewhere else I should post more like some others like Madjohn, who seems to have the sense to think what he putting down and doing it rationally and with purpose. When I'm irate I should move away from the pc and try to calm down and let my brain engage(someone bound to say I not got one) before I start typing away. I just don't calm down for ages after a bad performance, I wish I could. Passions, we'd be lost without them but stepping back and thinking has a lot to say for itself.

In response to Seaton Blue Toes, IOR have never and never will lose my support, Turner I'm afraid has, but that doesn't mean I don't want him to prove me wrong. To say every player Turner has signed wouldn't get into a team in the league below is laughable, Flinders , Austin McSweeney could.so could others but I not going to list them all.

IOR/Hodcroft.Green and Turner all want what they believe to be the best for the club (in their opinions) and the first 3 will always have my support.

Like Mould Old Dough I believe Turner isn't the man for the job but at the moment he's the incumbent and come Saturday I will be shouting on the eleven players he puts out against Rochdale, I've changed my wife I won't change my football team.

Turner and the players may prove us all wrong, as I said somewhere else as well we lost at York last season but then went to MK Dons( one of the fancied teams last season) and got a good point. maybe we will improve on that at Rochdale.

I will attempt to calm down after bad results and not come anywhere near a pc until I have and maybe what I write may well have some reasoned thoughts in it.

But as always...COME ON POOLS........ We proved nearly everyone wrong in 2003/04 and 2004/05 season let's do it again.

Our backs may be against the walls for whatever reasons but we can still stay in this division.

UNITED WE STAND DIVIDED WE FALL is far better than

DIVIDE AND RULE

As Mr I said we're in this together.

I'm afraid this is far too late; a load of bunker originals have left after saying this for months and being told they're [insert your swear word of choice here].

Why don't the pair of you just go and get fooked?

Well here we are on the eve of a new season and I agree with Mr I insomuch that we are where we are, and we have what we have.
It is probably safe to assume that any additional investment by other parties is now dead in the water and we are where we have been for the last thirteen years, namely dependent on IOR covering any shortfall in our income to match our expenditure.
The only influence we as fans can have in that quarter is to turn out and support the team and club, both vocally and financially.
The big question is will that happen?????
At the moment the noises emanating from the owners seem to be that Mr Turner is not going to be allowed to do much more strengthening. That doesn't mean that the owners have ruled out splashing any more cash on the playing budget. They may still be holding the loan market in reserve, as they have done in recent seasons, to be used as and when necessary. The owners have also sanctioned the acquisition of a new coach in Mick Wadsworth and could be pinning a bit of faith in his ability to get more out of the existing squad. I really do believe that the owners will not simply stand by and watch us get relegated, although the last two seasons have been as near to perfect examples of brinkmanship as is it possible to get.
I have tried to look at the collapse of an agreement with new investors in a positive way.
The only possible way new money, or even a takeover, can happen is for the current owners to be in full concurrence with it.
The agreement was as good as reached with a couple of minor obstacles to be ironed out was the message........................followed by collapse.
What if the owners had a nagging doubt over this investment??
What if it didn't have the best interests of the club in the owners eyes???
What if the memory of the original negotiations with Mr Hornsey came flooding back????
At present there is a considerable amount of disappointment in the air.............but have the owners acted in the responsible manner asked for, nay demanded by, Mr Hornsey?????
So we have what we have..........a football team that can compete if directed right, a club in Division one for the fourth successive year, a ground that is in good shape, a pitch to die for, owners who have proved their stamina, and support, if galvanised, that is second to none. " Give me twenty thousand supporters like that and we'll win everything" was the accolade given to us by Sir Bobby Robson in 1978.
We can play our part and I'm gonna play mine.
Who is with me??????????????????????????????

Good post Mr I
I think a few good performances (not even results - just that effort that pools fans really appreciate) will have the fans united again. It happened a few times last season when all was not well, but some pressure on the opposition and a few good tackles got everyone back onside again.
A good start is crucial. Come on Pools

What is so frustrating though is that IOR tell us fook all.
They haven't actually said we cant afford any more players have they?
Is this because they don't trust turner with anymore money and if so why haven't they sacked him.
It seems to me that relations between the 2 are not as good as before and why is that.
Loads of questions yet no fooking answers.
At the moment we are nailed on for relegation and anyone who thinks any different is foooking daft.
If we are bottom 8 come september/october we could be down to crowds of 2800!!

A cracking thread with some really good points raised.
I'm with Mr Lightning Tree however, in that there are just more questions than there are answers.

To be fair, Mr Man, a lot of good non-bunker-originals have left because of the way they were treated by some bunker originals.

Anyway, yes, about abuse directed at the team and Club, what's the point? We all know what the situation is by now. Either you accept things and keep going to matches anyway, or you think things are so bad that you want to stay away.

Banning offence is it not?

At the end of the day, I have and always will support Hartlepool United, it's in the blood I'm afraid.

Aye......

If you say so....

I didn't stop posting because of negativity. I stopped posting because of rampant, unwarranted, hopeless, unjustified, embarrassing, tedious, two faced, idiotic, divisive, tear inducing, blind, heartbreaking, amazingly naive hyper negativity.. I could go on ... but why bother.
The very idea of supporters showing a united front when we're in the sh*t, not giving our opponents an advantage before a ball is kicked by showing we're a divided rabble clearly goes in one orifice and out of the other. We knew things weren't good, but instead of shutting the f**k up, the smartarses had to point out our weakness's ... a bit like a soldier telling the enemy where the lines weakest just to show what a smartarse they are, when you're up against it you close ranks ... you don't whinge and chunter, you get behind manager and players and do your bit, painful as it may be.
A novel concept I agree, but some successful clubs learned it years ago. I despair sometimes. We've come so far and travelled so little, the club's moved on and some of the fans are running along trying to keep up with their trousers round their ankles and their arses in the air blaming everyone but themselves for not having the sense or wit to move on as well.

No3 Royston Old Donavan........?
No4 I saw loads of kids in blue and white tops this weekend


h.th

Ah, the old Turner talking up the opposition. Let's put that one into some realistic'perspective. If this set of results we've had had been accompanied by Turner dismissing the opposition, the same motley collection of whingers would have been whining like an Airbus on the runway building up to full thrust about him dismissing the opposition.. I can see it now, the usual fixated posters chuntering away...'Turner man, how can the lads be expected to have any chance if you're sending them out with daft ideas about the opposition being crap when some of these teams most certainly aren't ...for christs sakes man get a grip with your idiotic misplaced confidence bollocks, give them it straight, let them know what they're up against ... that and your idiotic fighting talk, etc etc, ad nauseum' ... Yup another myth where the whinge can be tailored to suit the occasion.
I see Graves 'contribution' to the debate is a silly grin.

Just what did he say...?

Then we are in agreement Mr Fireball, not sure about the glasses though.

Well, that's good, and I also think that people who hurl abuse from the stands should be similarly dealt with.

It's nice to see Snowy back, but I don't entirely agree with his view of 'negative posters'. Personally (unless I'm feeling particularly cross and want to join in the negativity!) I find it very easy to pass over and forget these posts, unless they're personally abusive. What's very tedious is the way some people jump on the negative posts and make an issue of them. Some posters rarely contribute anything original themselves, but just wait for opportunities to tell other people off. Apart from anything else, has anyone ever converted anyone into positivity by doing this???

If someones so clearly deluded as to dismiss Turners bigging up the opposition as a 'myth' then i see no point wasting my time drafting an essay on here for them.

I gave the grin because Mutley said pretty much exactly what I was going to say following your post.

Snowy never said it was a myth though

... and if he talked down the opposition you'd have joined the band of hope, beating the drum and slagging him off for exactly the same reason, it's just so predictable it's yawn inducing.
...but if you get the urge, draft away.

At the beginning of last season I was convinced that a fit Boyd and Brown front two would score a lot of goals. Not enough to challenge the strongest teams in the division but I honestly believed that if we also got the defensive duties of midfield sorted we would manage to sneak into the play-offs. Obviously I was horribly wrong.

This year I am convinced that we will struggle. Two close shaves followed by a summer of nothing much is my evidence but last year shows I'm not that good a judge. I'd love to be proved badly wrong this time round and there isn't that much between us most of the teams we'll be playing.

Hopefully Horwood will sort out left back, Gamble will fulfil the potential people talked about when he arrived and shield the defence properly. Boyd and Brown could stay fit and get picked in which case I think they'll both get goals as will others. It could happen.

Er, yes he did.



H.th fw.iw etc etc

Snowy is right however that the fans would also get on CT's back if he totally dismissed the opposition and it resulted in our players being complacent. The trick is to find a happy medium I guess, but constatly bigging up the opposition in the way he did was over the top. Also to say that a club like Pools need miracles to stay in the division is complete and utter rubbish. We just need a competent manager, that is all.

Whether we like it or not, the one sure fire way of getting a bit more optimism at the club would be a new managerial appointment. No amount of wishful thinking on here is suddenly going to get the team playing well. Hopefully we will appoint a new manager early in the season and get ourselves back on the right track. Turner may well be a decent Director of sport but he seems to have lost the plot as a football manager.

This happens on every single message board in existence. Such people are called flamers and no cure has yet been found.
Responding to flamers causes flame wars. http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Flame_Wars

For this reason I never post more than one refutation of a flame attempt (calmly expressed opinion >> flame >> calm refutation >> further flame >> whatever (eye roll and out).
There again, pages and pages of mind-numbingly boring invective might be people's idea of a lively board.

...It's a strange statement for someone in football management to make (if true), that you cant keep performing miracles to keep a team in a certain league.

Surely all football managers first prerequisite is that particular aim.

It's like you or me turning up at work and stating we cant keep working hard to say "fix cars" for example every day (if you work in a garage). I'm pretty sure our respective bosses would be mightily impressed with that claim.

If you knew that you hadn't got the right tools for the job because your boss wasn't replacing stuff as it wore out you might well say,"I can't keep performing miracles if you don't invest." It might stop the boss from sacking you when there were a few problems in future. If you let the customers know the position too they might be happy with a decent job rather than perfection.

I think Turner was trying to manage expectations, hoping for credit for keeping us up rather than a slagging for not getting us into the play-offs. Not that odd if you look at it like that but I think the timing was wrong.

No choice really is there? On a positive note that is my usual approach with cars and, as long as you buy japanese, it usually works out well. On the downside I never actually get the new car, just another old one, none of our players are japanese and Ritchie Humphreys is showing illegal signs of wear.

While Ken's away the mice will play

God, how depressing. I didn't realise there was all that intent behind it.

What about people who themselves are always 'flaming', ('it's only a message board')and then get horribly upset when the tables are turned. ('I resign')?
Don't they realise they're flamers, or this an additional perversion?

I know a few people who are "Flaming"

The annoying thing for me is that the older poster leave because the board is allegedly not what it was but the act of not posting allows the negativity to increase as a percentage thus the whole thing becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.

is this the matrix?

Well, the annoying thing for me is that the whole idea of negativity is magnified out of all proportion and is used as a weapon .......to increase group solidarity?
If people really didn't want to hear complaints about the Club, they wouldn't go looking for them on several message boards at once.

People have a right to complain if the things they're buying or voting for don't come up to the mark, providing the complaints don't become abusive.

I recall one of those end of seasons in the 70's when we were in the bottom four and the wait for re-election routine was about to begin. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, we'd lost and were once again in the clarts. The crowd as such were trickiling away and I for some reason sat on the terracing and was convinced that this was it, the end of the road and Hartlepool United was history, surely we couldn't get re-elected again ... and I thought to myself wouldn't it be nice if just for once we had a proper set of owners, like what other clubs have.... just a dream.
Then it actually happened ... and now I say to myself we replaced one 'want ' with another. Funny old world innit.