On Look North which is just starting now.

Actually I found it interesting and got the impression he dodn't approve in his usual understated manner.

The interesting part was that he didn’t really make it out to be rocket science. Regular budget meetings, communicate with staff, regular suppliers, pay the bills.

It’s not really is it?

Oh and they didn’t only leave the club debt free they actually left money in the bank!?

I'm half certain it was the first time I've seen him do an interview since he became Pools chairman!

He can say what he wants, who's going to believe him less than those who took over from him? It would be interesting to see where the club would be now if they'd got the ground, who knows it could of been worse than it is now or he may of actually been genuinely interested in developing the area.

The BIG flaw in his time at Pools would be the fact that they had regular budget meetings, kept the purse strings tight etc etc etc ......yet they had to clear 15 million quids worth of debt???

How does THAT work then? Not being narky, but surely....

I always assumed that 'debt' was the reason they were willing/able to back Pools financially for as long as they did. I may well be wide of the mark but aren't loss making companies afforded tax breaks?

I think they did put in and right off that money but hardly any of it was after 2009.

I think Hodcroft had enough off to run the club at self sufficient level and did for many years.

I thought that , when I heard him say IOR wiped off 13 million of debt when they left. If true, doesn't auger well for anyone incompetent running the club, if that's what responsible ownership looks like. Of course we have since seen what that looks like. So were IOR shrewd or not , was the early success down to pushing the boat out financially, or were they not as good at running a football club as they like to think. Hodcroft goes on about he council been stubborn, it sounded like IOR were like spoilt children. If they had offered council a decent price for the ground they may of got what they wanted.

It’s all smoke and mirrors about the council and ground IOR’s ownership can be divided into two parts when money from was being put into the club from Norway and when it wasn’t. When it was they were putting in over a million a year at times, when that stopped things were cut back and more self sufficient. They even stopped holding an agm in latter years when they couldn’t do a yearly advert for how much they’d put in and wrote off.

They were very good and responsible owners though who looked after our club better than anyone has over almost two decades and gave us some great times let’s not forget that.

Didn't see the interview but I am very cynical about claims that I.O.R. put millions into the club. We only have their word for it and why would they put anything into the club. On top of that why when they had been trying to off load the club for sometime and they were prepared to give it away and leave it debt free didn't they make an approach to the fans to take on the responsibility. Maybe it not just sage that don't want the fans to see the elusive books.

They ran a tight ship and there were never problems paying the wages or bills. Yes it was evident they wanted out at the end - whether it was they had had enough, the money was running out, or the abuse they got was too much to take. However the IOR years were undoubtedly the best years to be a Poolie.

Totally agree but why did they offload the club to what can only be described people who should be no were near other people's money not once but twice but never even gave a supporters group the opportunity to take the reins.

In a way not a lot has changed. IOR were losing a million a year and since they left the trend has continued. Difference now is the present owners are not prepared to absorb the losses.

Longer, audio-only version of the first part of the interview here - the second part might be put on later.

In the second part, which was broadcast at half time of the Boro match, he said "JPNG staff were allowed to buy things that IOR would never have allowed," "the 50k tax bill must be for PAYE as the VAT bill isn't much to worry about" (oh the irony!) and "the club doesn't make a profit so there's no Corporation Tax. For the PAYE bill to be so big, they must be paying ridiculous wages on too big a squad"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05wlgx3

I don't remember any supporters group being forthcoming at the time, I doubt the supporters association were in a position to take the reins.

Why should IOR have looked into the buyers background? The only thing they would need to know is if the buyer can afford it and since they were giving the club away that wasn't a problem.

He says in the interview that JPNG seemed to be fine. They had the relevant paperwork and were "putting people into big contracts overseas" so they were happy to pass the reigns over to them after helping them for the first few months.

There wasn't a supporters group able to take over but if Hodcroft had made it known he was willing to walk away and leave no debt then I'm sure a supporters direct could have helped a group or trust to be set up we would be in a lot better position than we are now and the club would be a lot stronger moving forward with no debt and a decent sqaud of players, compared to now, and we would not staring liquidation in the face.

No time for Hodcroft. When we were in bother he was saying that clubs in that position should be allowed to die. Changed his tune now.

Yup, fell for it hook, line and sinker!

Our Ken obviously did NO due diligence as he just wanted rid.

In the latter years of IOR's reign I don't think they managed the club very well at all. In fact it's only when comparing them to absolute shysters and criminals that they appear to be competent. Managing the club well would have been to achieve what Burton Albion and, to a lesser extent, Accrington Stanley have achieved - both clubs consistently punching well above their weight. Ken payed the bills on time hooray! Isn't that what most of us do? If IOR had stayed around we wouldn't have been in this mess, but we would have still been in the National League I'm sure of that.
They were a billion times better than KPMG, but that's like saying Franco was nicer than Hitler.

I took from interview that they put a million a year in but for 13 years, which helped buy the success we had. Presumably there were tax advantages and also money part of marketing budget.
They were here 17 years though, so for the last few years we broke even, hence no debt at end. If that’s the case, it’s interesting because it shows we can survive debt free, using match day income and season tickets. That shouldn’t be a surprise because smaller clubs get by. The trick though is to adjust our idea of success a little. Got to get out of boom and bust, think sustainable and incremental improvement.

This >

Except I think had IOR stayed we would of been in a mess, albeit on a lesser scale perhaps. IOR ran such a tight ship it stopped us from getting into the Championship. A quality centre half and striker away from being the real deal, a team that would of went up automatically. It could of been a disaster , with us dropping like a stone after a couple of seasons at that level , who knows , we will never know now.

For what its worth though, I agree they did give us some good times , but only in relation to the misery that went before.

What was wrong with Nelson and Westwood? They were quality.

They also stopped us going into the conference, got us promoted and then signed enough players to get us into the playoffs. Don't be greedy now!

They stopped us going into the Conference only because two clubs were desperate to get there before us that season!

They were good players, but not good enough to get us promoted automatically or even via play offs, always struggled against the big guns like Sharp, Trundle, Iwelumo etc, as generally did the strikers against the top sides.

Just listened to Hodcoft's interview on Look North. So pleased the Council was "stubborn" and did not give the ground away to him because if they had, chances are it would now be in the hands of Sage or someone else.

Regardless of what happens to Pools I am sure the Council will support Pools continuing to play at the Vic even if it is the Evo Stick League.

Me too Kirsty, and I'm sure you're right about the council, though I think at the time they may of considered had IOR not taken the mick and expected the ground for next to nothing.

I’m sorry but that is a million miles off the mark.

A lot has changed.

Hodcroft wouldn’t even pay agents we have had one of the fuckers virtually running the football side of the club with absolutely disastrous consequences. The previous owners weren’t able to absorb losses after Berge Larsen dissapeared, Hodcroft admits in the interview that IOR stopped putting in money but uses the council not giving him the ground as a smokescreen, as he always did.

We have been destroyed by liars and conmen, it is nothing like the previous 17 years to suggest that would be partly absolving charlatans like Coxall and Goldberg.

Compared to the shit we're in now, those were days in paradise. Towards the end it waned a bit, but we could never imagine the present scenario.
I'd quit the postmortem on IOR and focus on the quicksand we 're up to collective necks in now. You can't change history.

IOR probably delayed what is happening now by 15 years. Most of the other dogshit clubs in the league have since dropped out of the league, Rochdale excepted, but I reckon they will soon pay the price for their equivalent to our IOR days.

Who knows in 10 years time , when we are playing in a field up at Wynyard, we may look back at the current situation in a nostalgic way, that's what continual decline does to peoples memories.

Dropped out of the League to be replaced by what or whom? You can argue that the likes of Crawley or Stevenage are now big towns that started life as post-war new towns but have since grown their own identity and can now lay claim to a seat at the table.
But there are towns smaller than ours getting by without a sugar daddy.
In the La Liga you even have Eibar, the same size as Fleetwood, making a decent fist of it FFS.
Our attendances are as good as anyone's in the lower reaches of the League so why should we accept being a dogshit club?

I agree entirely, and share your frustration.

Villarreal have a stadium that holds 24,890 and they are based in a town with a population of about 50,000 (Vila-real).

They have won the Intertoto EUFA cup twice and got to the semi-finals of the Champions league in 2006.

Comparisons with foreign teams are unfair, different culture, some of their towns and villages wont have any clubs at all, yet in England we have about 10 divisions, with clubs even at bottom of the ladder potentially able to pull in 1000 fans. European countries don't have that amount of football on offer , most have one or two leagues, then next level is like our Evo-Stik league at best.

Pools aren’t a dogshit club at all and never will be. We’re a proud and great little club I couldn’t give a fuck what we’ve won or what we haven’t. The only dogshit I smell is from some of the people who have been recently involved in the club.

In relation to my post, the term dogshit was used to describe clubs who win little or nothing , and are in a constant battle to survive, Gateshead, Accrington, Barrow, Workington, HARTLEPOOL, Crewe, Rochdale, Halifax, Southport etc. In that respect we are.

Actually that's a little harsh on Crewe. Replace them with Darlington

I personally wouldn’t describe any club that’s been the cornerstone of a local community and brought people together for decades as ‘dogshit’ to be honest but I suppose I don’t have such a negative down trodden outlook on life. Give me any of those clubs over Mk Dons, Fleetwood or Rushden.

Well as you know PJ, I'm not one for burying my head in the sand like some. I think if you want to change something or improve something , you need to face up to your shortcomings, admit what you are, were you are, then do something about it.

Well yes, but they are the defacto team of Castellon, which is a pretty hefty conurbation like.

What Hodcroft actually says is that in their last years in charge they got the annual net loss down to £300,00-£400,000 (it's on the audio at about 4 mins 20). That's not an unrealistic annual fund-raising target for a trust-run club, given the odd decent cup run (admittedly, that would be a novelty).

‘Dogshit’ was a poor choice of words to describe any club.

I think the comparison is completely fair. Eibar are currently the 8th best team in one of Europe's four strongest leagues, with the lowest attendance in the division by far.
In anybody's books that's impressive. I'll settle for no less from Pools!

There's a certain Swedish club from a small town currently doing very well. Would the owner of that club be interested in repeating that success in the frozen wasteland of England's North East?

I'd argue the standard of their lower leagues is vastly inferior to the same equivalent tier of ours, thereby they were able to get a nice run going and have ridden on the crestwave of that ever since. This individual were he seriously interested would have to invest some serious dough in us to do something similar imo.

I've never seen Swedish lower league football so I couldn't give an opinion of it's quality. All I know is a Club from a town of 50k qualified for Europe and are doing rather well in that competition, seemingly without spending millions on managers and players. Maybe they just got lucky.