As a protesting stayaway..... today was the first time I had been in the ground for a while. I suppose if you see it a lot them these things can go unnoticed but I was shocked at the decay of the ground.

For example: the stantions holding up the town end are rusting. The advertising boards are rotten. The millhouse stand is rusty, the pitch is simply atrocious. I could go on but the whole ground has gone downhill through a lack of maintenance or maybe interest.

It really shows that IOR have really stopped the spending across all aspects of the club. It was this more than anything else, including the truly dire first half, that convinced me that we need to take control before its too late.

As Tenants, IOR are probably spitting their dummies out and expecting the council to keep the ground and pitch in running order. Ken is really screwing pools over.

The owners are doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to help pools stay up.
Only Sam Collins thinks otherwise.The sooner they go the better for every pools fan.

If we were to pull of the great escape and ior leave at the end of season then it will surely be celebrated like we just won the champions league.

The infuriating thing is we're all reluctant 'passengers' in the owners life boat and no one is coming to save us from our saviours..... or are we just a burden, like some old person unwanted by the estranged kids looking for a twilight home, any home just as long as they can be rid of this tiresome drain.... yet oddly reluctant to take the final step....the prevaracation leading to stagnation as nothing ever happens and we end up where we are today........ keeping up appearances to the outside world, but don't get too close as the old ladies draws haven't been changed for years.

And why shouldn't he expect that if the council are adamant it belongs to them?

He would have a point.

I'm guessing you've seen the terms of the commercial lease and it has special clauses in?

Yh and I imagine the council should expect a fair rent too... As ripper says it. commercial lease a totally different animal to a residential one..

As has been mentioned already

If the council are expected to keep the ground, playing surface etc in order, then it should be paid for out of the money they take from the ground - if the upkeep is more, then they could always put the rent up - I'm assuming the terms of the lease include the responsibility of the upkeep on the club - why else would Hornsey pay for a decent pitch, new stand etc.

I'd be very surprised if it wasn't a non maintenance lease, as you say, why would Pools have paid for the pitch, not recently mind you, it looks like a potato field.

It's just another piece of evidence if ever it was needed that the clubs finances are being drained.

I thought the same when I walked along Clarence Road the other day, don't think anything has been done in terms of painting etc for 7 or 8 years now, which ties in with the timescale of the general malaise of the club on the field.

Without wishing to sound too pro Ken, he, the fans and sponsors are the only ones bankrolling the club. He was and is wanting to hand over the club. Until new owners/investors are found the current predicament will not change.
Having over 10k a week of 'talent' sat in the stands doesn't help matters...

I certainly agree the pricing should be cut for the remaining home games, but i'm not so sure it would swell the gates that much, unless the impossible started looking like a reality.

The Millhouse side of the ground, outside of the Vic is a disgrace and has been for years. Potholes, generally flooded and an accident waiting to happen. Be interesting to see who an injury claimant would be due damages from, the club or the council.

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I don't think Ken has been bankrolling the club for years to be honest. The incoming fees have been substantial and yet the 'admin fees to IOR have been in seven figures. I reckon its Pools who are bankrolling IOR.

What are the admin costs? There has been a suggestion circulating that comes from the usual source that the admin costs are actually disguising players wages. I don't know enough about FFP or the state of the accounts to form an opinion.

Therein lies the problem. We just don't know all we can do is do the math and make an educated guess but a group of loanees and apprentices doesn't add up to a Chelsea wage bill.

Are the Heskeylators being maintained regulary ,and the carvery still functioning? .

Funny enough I sampled the catering yesterday. An atrocious pie and a bottle of coke (complete with top) for a fiver.

Monkeybutt would rip the catering side apart..20k and a season ticket would do it i reckon.

Word up

On the pricing to get in and on food, it is all too expensive but there's a little girl who stands next to me with her granddad. She's 8 and doesn't have a season ticket so its £10 and then she'll spend over a fiver on chips, sweets and drink every game and he will get something as well.

Because of the price in she doesn't go every game but if it was cheaper she would every game apart from Tuesday nights. So the club might get £16ish for het going every third game. If it was a fiver in she'd still be getting her food with her granddad so that's £10+ for her EVERY game. I am no genius but its hardly rocket science as to which gets the club more money.

On the subject of the condition of the ground it is run down. My dad is proud of the fact he helped build the Rink End wall and other such things as a fan; they'd get a something to keep them going while they did it and a ticket into the match.

It doesn't have cost a fortune for the basic upkeep of the ground and it doesn't have to be a big job. Spend a few hundred quid on paint and get some fans in over the summer to give a hand with a bit of painting and just let them into the pre-season games for free and with a bit of luck they might spend money once in the ground. Hey presto the ground looks brighter and there is instinctively some of that community spirit back in the club

That's correct but we don't really know what sort of wages the players are on either - if the blabbermouth is to be believed some of the players are on thousends of pounds a week. That's believable when we had some really good sought after players, not so believable when we're about the only ones in the queue for free agents.

I don't think the club is funding IOR as has been suggested but there's a lot of money that has been pissed away over the years on pre-season tours and overnight stays with the trimmings on away days that could have been put to better use...

A win or draw on Tursay and the Burton game simply must be reduced.

Must be.

I don't think money is pissed away on overnight stays tbf it's standard even in the conference now. The hotels they say in have to be of a certain standard as they provide food and meeting rooms. You can't have the team in a travel lodge.

Maybe you have a point about overseas trips but IOR have barely spent any money recently so it's hard to have a go when they do!

Anyone who thinks Pools are paying players decent money needs sectioning.

I'd imagine our current highest paid players are on what squad players were on 10 years ago. Compare and contrast the team we had ten years ago to where we are now. It's all relative.

We just need to look at the playing ability on the pitch and our league position to confirm how much less we are paying players than previously and indeed other clubs

What is the old saying? you pay peanuts you get a bag of monkey limbs to re-assemble into your own monkey but be aware that not all of the limbs still work as previously and you'll quickly regret the "investment" and spend the rest of your time trying to polish a turd and end up trying to replace the useless monkey with other useless monkeys until you get a monkey that is still shit but you'll be so sick of looking you'll just accept it because it is not as shit as the utterly shit first one you got

Well something like that

It's not a case of thinking that they are on thousends of pounds a week, I would imagine that a fair few players are literally on bot all. I'm just passing on information that is coming out of the club, information used to justify lack of signings.

On the flip side if it costs you £75k a year for Tony Sweeney then I'm not surprised that we haven't seemed to sign anyone decent lately. Isn't the average league two player on about £45k a year? £600 quid a week is all Sweeney was worth - in fact that is generous.....

Parnaby was also supposedly offered a lump sum pay off to terminate his deal around xmas time. A pay off that would have saved Pools about £10k - he declined....

We'd have probably been alright if Moore been in charge from earlier in the season, not pulling up trees but alright, we've actually started to resemble a football team who have won 4 home games out of 5. It's Green and Hodcroft's at best, pure incompetence at worst not really giving a fuck that sees us were we are. The fact Cooper had to resign and the chairman suggested that they weren't prepared for a change of manager is staggering given Coopers results since January (or more accurately, since Hignett) last year and then the subsequent appointment and treatment of Murray is the period that is likely to condemn us, Between Murray and eventually Moore we had a 'run' of 7 league defeats in 8, and went out of the cup to Blyth. That is what we will look back at when the inevitable happens. You could go back much further than that and way the club has been mismanaged and ran down and say this season was coming either this season or the one after but the powers that be at the top could have salvaged this one if they were capable of making a decent decision (with the best interests of the club at heart, not self interest) which for ages they haven't been.

You probably right about russ and thats why he will still be here next season with ior.
He knows how to look after himself thats for sure.

I don't know if you saw Wimbledon's coach but it was from York so presumably they got the train down and finished it off with the journey by coach. Similarly I read an article about Dagenham from a few years and that when they played York by getting the train and walked to the ground they saved £1400 compared to a coach and over night stay.

I understand the concept of getting a coach being good for the team and such and obviously in some cases it is necessary but I think if pools did a bit of thinking outside the box we could save money better spent else where

Carlisle regularly get trains to away games

Carlisle are on the West coast main line..... our train service is shite....we'd have to ask for dispensation from the league to not play night matches as there is no train after nine o' clock

I sometimes wonder if some of you people live in the real world it's very easy to come up with simplified solutions example:-

Getting fans to paint the stands (get some paint and let the fans get on with it). If the paint work is as bad as been stated, rusty etc do you not think:-

Sand blasting (to remove the rust) will be required.

Scaffolding in these days of health and safety.

Safe working procedures etc etc.

Don't get me wrong I know what you're saying but is it as simple in this day of Health and Safety.

My point is years ago you could do what people are stating but not now.

Tell me about it. I remember painting the gable on the roof of the stand when volunteers were dolling up WHRFC's Brierton ground in the 1970s.
Jesus, talk about kamikaze, it was the shakiest ladder in the history of gable painting.