For a while I have a avoided the bunker fearing the negativity
Came back today. Spending 5 minutes pouring over the negative vitriolic bile that you are all spouting
Supporters me arse

Hope all of you that say you're not coming next season are true to your word
It'll be a better place to be as a result of it

Pack of miserable bastards !!!!!!

So you happy with the recent decisions by the club??

I had a couple of punters on my twitter feed earlier telling me that I need to "get real" and that I want "the moon on a stick" because I'm not happy. Apparently I'm supposed to be happy with worse than mediocrity, sub standard football and players and club owners/management taking the p*ss out of us. The rose tinted brigade banging on about cheapest season tickets in the league and remember the 70s and 80s. I refuse to accept what is happening now and having to be eternally grateful for 7 year stint between 2000 - 2007.

Oooh oooh I'm a better fan because everyone else is angry and I'm not.

If you agree with the decisions then put a point across, calling everyone names is just pathetic.

Actually. You're not worth it

[ ] brilliant thread

if hope had a few more column inches he was just about to start saying he had nice blonde hair.

Singing from the same hymn book mate.

You just cant argue with any of that hypo.

Hate to be the spelling mistake guy who picks apart peoples posts, but its Garbish.

super fans. superstars how many season tickets have been sold so far.

over 300 Kev

Sung to the tune of Jesus Christ Superstar!

I think the directors are just having us on and over the weekend they're gonna hire Mourinho with Guardiola as his No.2, sign Messi and Ronaldo and maybe Pepe and then Pique for the fan service, then jump up behind us and shout "nernerner had yous all!"

I've not been one for mindless criticism of IOR, but that doesn't mean we should simply say that we'll accept everything that happens without comment - and the facts speak for themselves. We are still to announce who our new manager will be - and the revolving door policy over the last couple of years is something worthy of comment itself - and yet someone has released players and retained others. If we have a new boss who is making these decisions - announce the name. Otherwise the assumption has to be that the decisions are being made at a higher level (ie boardroom) and that therefore anyone coming in as manager has to accept that they will have a lot of interference from above.

We have just been relegated following a season that didn't see us show much fight until February, and even then only gave us a little hope of avoiding the drop. Two managers (three if you include Barron's spell as caretaker) were unable to consistently motivate the group of players we have. And yet the only regular of that team released has been Evan Horwood. Someone therefore has decided that a group of players that has serially underperformed are in fact good enough if playing at a lower level. Who? The previous Manager, who made it clear he was planning a clearout? The new manager, who is at the moment unknown? Or the board?

We have every right to question what's going on at HUFC at the moment. Not least because it increasingly looks like whoever comes in as manager is going to be hamstrung before they even start - unable to bring in their own coaching staff, very limited opportunity to change the squad, and a board that seem to want a head coach who will do as told rather than a proper manager. Whether it's Colin Cooper, Steve Harper or the ghost of Bill Shankley, I currently have little confidence that they will be allowed to make a difference - Russ Green might as well appoint himself and have done with it. Harold Macmillan may have told us that we've "never had it so good", but at the moment this is more like the seven lean years following the seven fruitful years in Pharoah's dream - the good memories are being gobbled up by the bad, and in terms of actual progress we are talking about 10 league places - assuming we show enough to finish mid-table next season. Is that really the legacy that Sir Harold thought he was leaving Pools when he sold to IOR? Somehow I doubt it....

Can someone explain to me what him and the penguins were celebrating and giving the thumbs up sign for when we have just been relegated. They are a fucking embarrassment.

I don't usually join in with all the hysteria, however for the first time in donkey's years I (and my old man) am not renewing my season ticket...I'm just not enjoying it anymore. Those who are going to buy a season ticket I say good on you. Personally I've had a fucking gut full.

a superb post chip.

Its how i have felt for over a year.

I think every fan has a right at this moment in time to question some decisions ( and with no manager the lack of decisions) at this moment in time. Pools will always be my team and come a Saturday or Tuesday I will be there. I don't think I could could give them up completely. Everyone has that choice though and that choice can be made for whatever reason. Once more we have a great offer for a season ticket but the problem is many , and I'll use Chip as an example because of his post above have become disillusioned over the few years we've been getting cheap season tickets. Would we have been better off if we'd left the prices high, we'll never know. What we do know though from this(and other) boards that many fans have either already decided not to renew or at best have put off renewing until they have more details of the management team and squad for next season. Is it negativity (as original poster) called it or are those posters just being anxious of what might happen to their team. I don't think I'm negative but I will admit to being 100% anxious of what is going to happen to Pools, not in the sense of going t**s up with financial problems but what is going to happen on the pitch. I don't think that makes me a miserable b*****d either.

Lets be straight here, who are we going to bring in to excite the fans prior to next seasons start.......at best a couple of free transfer cast-offs from clubs who dont value them either, or a couple of higher league journeymen at the end of their careers ....is that really gonna turn this squad into next seasons front runners.......can't see it I'm afraid.

I do get baffled by the mindset of the 'my club right or wrong ' brigade who will brook no compromise and accept no criticism of the club. Unquestioning acceptance and a failure to confront criticism with debate rather than dismissing critics with a contemptuous wave of the hand and a blind refusal to face up to reality will only result in more of the same. It's the thought process of someone happy to get by in a one party state, who thinks the great leader knows what's best and gets irritated by any form of dissent, justified or not, all dissent to them is 'rocking the boat', which cannot be tolerated. I do get worried by people who profess unquestioning loyalty to anything.

Pools footballwise have been pretty mundane for several years and now the inevitable has happened, the debate has livened up .....being a pools fan is like being a passenger on the Titanic after it's hit the iceberg..... the uber fans are admiring the iceberg and collecting samples of ice and saying its unsinkable....... the fans are heading for the lifeboats...... the Captain's sacked the chief engineer and is unavailable, the first officer likewise and the iceberg lookouts given new contracts .... and sacked the one off duty!

I stopped going last season.

I miss the craic with Mr Ed and Dave and Nobby.
I miss the Pub
I mis the way it used to be.
I miss having players we used to love watching......or rather have become accustomed to watching.

I dont miss, the turgid style of football served up now.
The lack of any real footballer in the squad......there isnt one player I would pay GOOD money to watch.
I have my own personal reasons for getting dissillusioned with the clubs academy system......or lack of.
This last reason has got to me like I cancer clinging to me. I know I have mentioned this a lot, but there are things which I just couldnt mention on here, as it would get personal, and I dont want that.

But it has driven a wedge between me and Pools and I dont see it ever closing. I am very bitter about it.

You see some of the players getting a game for Pools now, and you just know there are better players out there. But they dont fit the profile.

Some DO have blind faith in Pools and I was one of them. But I dont now.

Aye, but you just have to draw a line under it and develop blind optomism again don't you? Isn't that what its about? And the side was definitely worse when I started going. So was the ground. So was the commercial structure of the club. So was the bloke called Alan who stood at the rink end and randomly abused the players. When re-election was abolished and relegation to the conference was introduced I thought we were doomed. Look at how many sides bigger than us have gone down, or struggle to get out of L1. It's a major achievement that we haven't been in peril if you ask me. People make mistakes at the end of the day and players are the same at most clubs aren't they? It's not blind faith, it's just the reality of supporting a lower league club. Ups and downs but life goes on. You just have to grudgingly accept it, or don't bother going, which is a shame as it doesn't help the club. I thought about not going meself, but at the end of the day it gives me something to moan about/ gets me out the house/pub etc.

If that's the reason you go to Pools and the pinnacle of you ambition for the club ... don't bother. Your philosophy appears to be .... we're shit, we've always been shit, always will be shit, so let's humbly know our place, get down on our knees, accept it and be thankful. No thanks.

Blimey, you really have got it bad. Now you're telling me not to go! I didn't say I didn't have ambition for the club. I do. Realistic ambitions based on fan base and turnover.

Spot on imo.

I do wonder if we would get some 'feeling' back for the club and a bit more enjoyment if Ken did feck off and we dropped to Darlo 90210 level. I would still go to the games (home ones anyway) and as long as the club do things the right way, get shot of the 'jobs for the boys' attitude and show a bit of common sense in their decisions then that would be 'ok'. It may feel like 'the towns club' again

yeah but he's not forcing you to adopt the same attitude is he ? that's how he, and a boat load of other people choose to view their club. your criticism of those with this sort of outlook is as pointless as the bile aimed at people who are up in arms about what's happening. the problem with any messageboard is that its those who can be arsed posting on it (i.e a minority of pools' fans) give a skewed cross-section of what the majority actually think.

I don't think it's that scewed.

I've spoke to plenty of Pools fans over the last few days who don't post on here and the same questions keeps cropping up;

What is going on at Pools? and Why are contracts getting dished out to players who were a constant in our worst season for many a year by the chairman and chief executive?

I'll be there next season but it doesn't detract from recent events being an absolute nonsense.

And how do you increase attendances and turnover?

We were averaging over 5000 for a few seasons, he football was good, the club had money. Then this malaise set in where we tread water and eventually started sinking. This is the reason fans are unhappy because the people in charge of this demise were never made accountable. Now we're in a situation where no manager in his right mind would want to come to Pools and players are getting contracts on the say so of god knows who (Humphreys?).

You can try to play the "punching above our weight" card all you want but the true fact is we've went backwards because of mismanagement throughout the club, not the dwindling attendances.

The general consensus of the fans I speak to is one of concern. Very few are actually happy with how things are going. You hear just about everyone saying the same things on a matchday.

The people who post on the bunker and into the blue will typically be very committed to the club and as a result, you will probably get a greater degree of acceptance as they will support the club no matter what. Unfortunately, those not so committed (and a lot of people who WERE regulars) will vote with their feet.

HELLOOOOO!!!

Me n you, we're finished.... skinny 'lovely lovely person'.

Sorry mate.

Most of all i miss the sex in the toilet with our very own popstar.

too little, too late

*flounces*

Three other clubs were relegated last year. It happens and unfortunately it has happened to us. Last time it happened we bounced back. So its not exactly blind optomism. I'm surprised some people on here can see anything themselves amidst all their toys being thrown out of prams every time the club do something, like re-sign a bench warmer. It just gets funny after a while. The board should have a Victor Meldrew section.

I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't 'the board' resigning players.

What sort of football club works like that?

If you think the club are in a similar position as last time we went down then you're deluded.

But we have no real cause for optimism right now do we? The pessimism of a few seasons ago is turning into blind pessimism as a result of the repeated mistakes by the club and their inability to see what the fans want to see.

Its up to the club to motivate the fans, and they are doing the square root of fook all imo.

Yeah, we should just sit on our hands and watch the tumbleweeds blow through the bunker boards.

I would agree with you there MJ, thats true, but come on, I don't really see how anyone can feel anything other than pessimistic right now.

Every season we just want a proper manager who can clear out the dross how he sees fit and sign a few promising players. Thats not a great deal to ask really. Other clubs do this!

To retain all the same failures as last season cant motivate , can it???

Optimism has to have something to feed on, a sign of hopefully better things to come, an admirable thing, but confusing optimism with blind optimism is not quite the same thing. Blind optimism is a belief in something with no foundation, a pointless self defeating exercise.... pessimism is its bedfellow, ........ but justifiable concerns have to be addressed, some people are not prepared to just shrug their collective shoulders and hope it turns out right in the end.

Sums it up quite nicely.

I've not seen any optimism though. Just dismissive reactions to people's concerns.

4000, last time we were relegated? At the seasons end when we were facing relegation?

You may well be right about that Chip, but the economic climate was also a bit better back then. I don't doubt we'd get half that now if the club didnt have the promotion on.

I also dont disagree that the club need to do something to raise peoples expectations.

If you accept that the club accepted relegation at Xmas, there was no point in throwing money away at the back end of last year. Disappointing for the supporters, but the club will already know they need to do something to attract people back. Hughes was an interim, really. He did okay and got some higher level experience out of it. The club have admitted they made mistakes and will do what they can to address things. No-one else is there to take over the club and invest countless millions.

For a number of years the club has been run on the basis of a retained squad of players with the coach then able to supplement with a few signings and loan players. What's the surprise now with the retained list? i think those players retained should be good enough squad players for league 2 and are affordable. We need a good coach, respected in the game with good contacts. if we can sign four or five players cheaply and they work out thats the best we can hope for. Mind you, I've not checked me euro ticket yet.....

Last time we went down a sub 4,000 crowd was very rare, the crowds towards the back end of the season were in general 5,000+ with nearly 7,000 turning up for the last game. The average attendance was 4,811.

Russ Green didn't sound like we'd just appointed an interim manager the day Hughes got the job. If we were certainly down why waste half a season with a short term manager? Why not start planning for League Two then?

It's an absolute nonsense to suggest Hughes was under the impression that he was an interim manager.

You wrote his contract, PJ? I'm certain he knew he had limited job security when he signed it, which amounts to the same thing in my book. Or did we give him a six year contract, maybe? No, a clause in his contract was activated and he was released.

What happens in reality is sometimes not always what is said the the press is it? What else do you expect RG to say when they appoint a manager? They all say the same thing. We've got our man, we expect him to be here for ever blah blah. What happened in reality will not be known.

I'd have preferred Brown, two new coaches and 16 players in the summer last year, but like I said we cant afford that can we?

If he was 'interim' then he would have needed a coach, so Barron was retained? No signings so the next manager could choose his own players maybe? Just makes more sense to me, but obviously i am assuming that those in charge of the club have some sort of plan and most people on here dont believe that is possible.

It doesn't make any sense whatsoever we've completely wasted half a season and we have non football people making football decisions.

How does any of this make sense??

Making sense would have been appointing a manager back in November with a long term plan in mind. It would have gave him half a season to asses the squad work out what we're lacking and target some realistic alternatives with a eye already on League Two.

Now the new manager is going to pretty much get the squad full of proven losers he's given with the scope to bring in a few additions. Sorry for not bursting with excitement at watching the same turgid rubbish I have for the last couple of years I can't be a proper fan.

It seems according to many on here we can only be either blindly optimistic or blindly pessimistic. What about being either optimistic or pessimistic depending on the circumstances and the facts in front of us. Currently I see no reason for optimism but plenty for pessimism, I am hopeful that changes over the close season but currently I see nothing at all that could make someone optimistic.

So you agree that Russ was talking out of his arse in that press conference then?

The new manager is going to prove crucial. On another thread Mutley wrote an excellent post about how it seemed like everybody connected with Pools was smiling and pulling together until 2007. Absolutely right, we were a club on the up and that meant everything seemed possible. We've proably all got our favourite examples. The play-off semi with Tranmere, that away match at Hull when we needed all the results to go for us and to win by a few clear goals to get into the play-offs, the match in Cardiff. Your rational self knew that we wouldn't always win but we always believed that we could. Once you've got that sort of spirit going everybody plays a little bit better or sings a bit louder and the thing keeps growing and rolling.

It doesn't last forever for any club though and we haven't had it for a while now. We've got the feeling of a club on the slide and, whether you're a player or a fan, that makes you concentrate on the negatives. As soon as you concede it's game over and the belief seeps out of you.

The new manager needs to recreate the feeling of a club on the up very quickly. He'll need to bring in a few new faces who can help him to do that and he'll need to start getting the best out of players he inherits who have been underperforming badly. Look at Liddle's revival at Notts County- it is possible to get your form back if you are basically a decent player. With the right leadership, coaching and tactics some of the old guard might still come up with a positive contribution and, for now at least, we do have Flinders, Baldwin and James to place hope in.

Anyone who says this is all blind optimism is wrong. Remember what Cyril Knowles achieved with some free transfers in a far worse situation? Even though it is a difficult task this sort of transformation using limited resources is what good managers do. The problem is that finding a good manager for your unique situation is every bit as demanding. All we can really do is hope that the club's owners get it right and try to keep positive enough to spot the signs of recovery if they come.