All the national newspapers seem to be doing a piece on Pools at the minute; tomorrow it's the Daily Express, with an interview with Jeff Stelling.

Heard most of it before, except this, though there were a few rumours:

"They have compounded existing financial problems after being relegated from League Two last season by retaining a full-time squad of 29 players on a combined wage bill of more than £1m."

First thought is, the people advising John Blackledge must have been off their heads.

Second is why on earth are Craig Harrison and his coaches still here? It's the National League for God's sake. Talk about under-achieving!

With coaches the average salary would be around £27k maybe and we don’t know if that includes legacy salaries.

Being in the Express though, who knows if it’s true or not. Surprised they found space to mention us, what with all the princess Diana conspiracies to get through.

As it was an interview with Jeff Stelling I'd assume he was the source for the figure.

On what basis do you infer that the coaches are included in the figure, much less 'legacy salaries?' If, as it appears to state plainly enough, the £1m relates to the 29 players, that's an average salary of £34,500.

That the Express is an awful excuse for a newspaper is a given, but their sports pages are no better/worse than any other tabloid.

Wages for a 29 player squad would be expected to be over 1 million surely.

1 million/29 = 34,500 per annum

hardly millionaire stuff

Assuming the younger players are on very low wages, as is stated on here often enough, the high earners will be on considerably more than £34.5k.

Anyway, the relevant comparison is what average wage bills are in the NL. Pools put well over the odds into the wage bill in a gamble for a quick return to League football. If a £1 million players wage bill isn't even sustainable over half a season in the context of other outgoings and debts it was a pretty stupid gamble. Harrison's failings as a manager made it suicidal.

We've gambled on going up, but not only that, we've gambled with very very average players, harrisons signings have been poor, i cant think of anyone that stands out bar loach.

I wouldnt mind if we'd signed good players.

We've gambled on being promoted with conference players, I wouldn't mind if they'd gambled with half decent league players that are better than the players at this level

I think at the start of the season most people were quite optimistic about the players we had signed. Sadly, for whatever reason, most have not lived up to expectations.

And some have been injured more often than they've played. Which could be described as bad luck, but not in Luke George's case. Signing him is on a par with giving Stuart Parnaby a playing contract.

No offence to Luke as an individual but I was fuming about this. My mate is a mad Chester fan and his warning was entirely accurate - injury prone and a liability when he is fit. Terrible, terrible signing.

If that true then Duxbury and Watson have set outgoings for the season at around a million pounds more than they knew would be coming in. Pam would only have done that with her financial background if Blackledge had promised to make up the difference. It sounds like he has lost his bottle and pulled the plug 4 months into the season.
The alternative is that Duxbury and Watson are complete incomptents not fit to do their jobs
Either how you look at it we are lumbered with players and management staff on long contracts and high wages so that nobody will touch the club.

Hang on, if we have an annual players wage bill of £1m, but we are losing £130k per month, then even if we didn't have any players on the books we would still be losing £560,000 per year?!?! What the hell is going on? Where is this money going? Do we have no monthly income streams at all?

Apparently last month as well as 29 players we were still paying for 3 managers, Hignett Jones and Harrison, God knows how many coaches, and a load of backroom staff including a Head Of Recruitment. Can only assume the Head Of Recruitment gets a bonus every time he hires someone. More pro players than half a dozen Championship clubs apparently. No wonder nonoby wants to buy the club with all those contracts to pay.
Yet people are still sticking money into that funding page to hand over to the people that got us into this mess !

Football is a Cash cow business.

As we know the Hartlepool United cow has been milked for as much as possible and we as fans are just left asking who has, who is accountable, and no one has held their hands up and said yes it was me and i am responsible unless we can see the books as evidence of the milking we will probably never know all we can do is assume and be very angry.

The total running costs are 130k per month, as Sage have been unwilling to put cash into pools since taking over we have now run out of cash and will be making a loss of 130k a month from now on. The only money Sage put into pools was that given to Coxall, nothing else.

So the money brought in this month won't be used to pay things like the laundry and other external debts, that will be the justgiving money? So what happened to the money from the Simpson sale and the ticket sales?

Just giving is only at 60k so still 140k short of its target. I should imagine by the 25th it'll be 100k max so with Simpson/ticket sales on top we should be ok for another month. If we enter admin this month we know it's been pocketed

Just had a look in the Daily Fookin' Express. Accompanying the article about Sir Jeff there are four photographs taken from the Cyril Knowles Stand of a match taking place with a completely deserted Mill House Terrace and Town End.

The caption ? "Jeff Stelling says the club are the heartbeat of the town but the empty terraces tell their own sad tale..."

Some of the players look about twelve. Presumably it's a photo from the Reserves/Youth team game the other day when only one side of the ground ( the C.K. Stand ) is open. A lazy caption that would rather show the supporters in a bad light.

Anyone know offhand what Pools' average attendance is so far this season?

If I wasn't so thick on computers I'd provide a link.

3400 plus

Given the parachute payment and our decent support would of thought the Annual Turnover of 3 million+ from previous seasons would be more or less the same this season.
Its not the players wages that have created the debt.
Anyway lets hope this new gadge can sort our club out.

Wage bill for players over a million. Is that a shock? I would think last season before Pam got involved it would be heading for multi millions - maybe 4 or 5 is closer to reality then. There are players on substantial wages who have been here a while and some who accepted new contracts.

Yes there will be younger players earning less but it will be much much higher than a million a year. Otherwise there would be no financial troubles!!