According to the Northern Echo. So is it fair to assume Maguire was fired because of poor performance?

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... ZNRWBQHKx4

What Pools need is a good commercial sales manager. That’s all no more. At the risk of being repetitive, they had the perfect guy in place to do that role in Mark Simpson.

This bloke certainly looks good on paper. Agree about the need for a good commercial sales manager , but Mark Simpson? that wasn't his forte was it?.

Anyway the new bloke.

"I offer aspirational businesses and elite sports clubs an invaluable blend of strategic wisdom, commercial experience and financial expertise - embedding growth initiatives, performance improvement and high performance practices that inspire sustainability and success.

I love working with chairs, entrepreneurs, senior executives and investors of businesses ranging in turnover from £5m to £50m. "

His last two jobs I believe have saw him help establish the sides as fan owned outfits.....

Could that be Raj starting the ball rolling on letting the fans take over all together?

The job doesn't need that level of corporate sales. It needs someone who is likeable and has credibility amongst the decision makers in local businesses. That'll be the SME sectors with Pools fans on the board. To them MS has all the credibility in the world and will have a million anecdotes to tell in sales meetings.

Seriously, he could have been great in the job.

Mr Loan Star, whats your view?

Welcome to the board Mr Cow.

What ! you mean people like Raj Singh ? likeable , credibility , decision maker. Out of interest what SME's in Hartlepool do you know of with money to spare to give to Pools?.

I was talking about Mark not Raj. If you’re pitching for a £500 or less corporate box or advertising then SMEs are exactly your target audience.

"I offer aspirational businesses and elite sports clubs an invaluable blend of strategic wisdom, commercial experience and financial expertise - embedding growth initiatives, performance improvement and high performance practices that inspire sustainability and success.

I love working with chairs, entrepreneurs, senior executives and investors of businesses ranging in turnover from £5m to £50m. "[/quote]

Yes thats me too. Sure i have seen that on a few CVs in my time.

I realised that. I was being a little sardonic in relation to your confidence in businessmen, most of which I find in reality are Snake Oil Salesmen. Agree about the corporate boxes , but we need a few big businesses on board not just SME's. Starting from a blank canvas though, getting the hospitality sector back on track should be a top priority. Interesting that Mr Jesper has went from Darlington to Hearts now Hartlepool. I'm sure Mark could do it, as could you and I , still prefer someone with the qualifications though, despite my reservations of some of them as people. You only have to look up the road to Sunderland to see how underwhelming some of these people are. Hopefully we are not replacing Maguire like for like.

It does sound a bit corporate doesn’t it. I seen one once from an 18 years old who “revolutionised businesses with innovative thinking’

Yes thats me too. Sure i have seen that on a few CVs in my time. [/quote]

I used to love working with chairs as well , Brighton beach in the summer of 1986 was a nice little earner

You know how insular the town is Ron. I think MS could get over the door an awful lot easier that a Corporate guy. Also you’re not selling anything that people don’t know and understand. Everyone in the target market knows the recent history of HUFC so it would be part sponsorship, part philanthropy. If your market is Pools fans in management positions they’d more likely take a call from someone who they know has the club at heart than a corporate suit they’ve never heard of. I really think Pools have missed a trick here. It would also be self funding.

Fair comment. They could've even combined his previous job with that of Commercial Manager and gave him a pay rise. A local more modest person in the role may have been a better fit given our circumstances. I don't know what the hell is going on, one minute Singh is talking about cutbacks and volunteers , the next he's bringing in an all singing all dancing PR guru , at least that's what we hope.

Yes Mr H the best businessman i knew looked/talked nothing like a businessman who had to be told by head office to get rid of his 6 year old Ford and get a Jag. At a conference we were sat together and he commented favourably about my suit. I opened up the jacket to show where the M&S label had been cut out as it was a reject bought from the Easington Road factory. He did the same and the label was cut out too. I suppose now he would be on about £150-£200k.

This was my first thought on hearing this. Rather than let things go awry like at Darlo he might be getting the right foundations in place incase the worst scenario arises?. So if a transition is needed the right people are there to oversee it?

Hoy Simmo, don’t get used to these compliments!!

All about the image these days, whilst I appreciate it does have a part to play, is not the be all and end all of being able to do a job well.

This is what Darlo fans are saying , In the main seems fairly complimentary.

http://darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=38406

Jesper is a good bloke. We did sail close to the wind a couple of times while he was in charge but we turned things round.
Think he wasn't happy with the deal struck with the rugby club and didn't want his name put to it so took the chance to take up some work at Hearts. He'll probably give Singh some home truths so its how he takes being told where he's going wrong that will be the key.

like all new signings he,s a wait and see for me.

Looks the part , in fact looks a little bit glitzy for my liking. Comes from the same men in shiny suit background as Coxhall and Co.

My concern is , is he here to improve the club , catering , club shop , Mill House seats etc or just to clear the decks, with more cost cutting etc in readiness for Raj's imminent departure . Paving the way for the fans to takeover is all well and good if you are sitting at the top of league 2 and things going well off the field , but as things stand currently , he could be offloading a poisoned chalice onto the fans. My gut feeling is he is here for the latter. We will soon find out.

Mark Zuckerberg offered to work for you and you turned him down???

At the very least he understands the ins and outs of fan ownership and fan participation in ownership, is not exactly a stranger to lower league football in the North East and is still based in the region.

I'm not too worried about the consultancy-speak as that's how he's been trying to earn a living. I'd be a sight more worried if Raj wasn't interested in making an appointment!

Name change alert !

Who needs a Commercial manager or CEO when you can have an Acting Executive Director.


https://www.hartlepoolunited.co.uk/club-statement/

Bugger me never thought of that title!

Club Chairman Raj Singh said: “Martin has been providing constructive challenge to the Club’s short and medium term plans over the last 3 months.

Is that consultancy speak for 'Maguire's a clown, gizza job'?

I was just typing the same quote out, yes its polite for the club isn't being run to it's full potential... currently.

If Mark McGuire knew this was going on he must of known his days were limited. Just to show you nothing is new in business except the bullshit phrases.

Accountant who then becomes a business transformation professional, what more could a non-league club wish for to ease their woes

Formula:-
(Incomings - Outgoings = Cost savings) - potential incomings + investment opportunities ÷ Coxhall effect x the sums of the squares of the other two sides ÷ pi(pukka) = League 2.

Easy innit.

"Acting" in a job title usually means to me it isn't a permanent position. I wonder how long this guy will be at Pools?

I wonder if the Trust had prior knowledge of Mr Jesper? Surely his consulting with the club should've been mentioned at the recent meeting , when the fans were asked to invest in the club. If it wasn't , then hardly a good foundation for future open and honest negotiations.

I have to agree with what your saying Mr Horden, I’m a bit uneasy with Mr Jespers arrival and not because he was employed by the Lodi’s at one point.Mark Maguire was going nowhere this time last week (or so we think), Mr Jesper being a chartered accountant has set a little alarm bell in my ears. I’m wondering if Raj is preparing to depart or prepare for administration or to try & sell the club on? If it hadn’t been for Raj as we know there’d of been no club, the fact it’s proven to be much more expensive than he’d first thought means we need to either cut our cloth accordingly or get more investors in. Raj’s main business is care homes, places that will be hit hard during this Coronavirus crisis which is obviously much bigger than football.

The other uneasy thing is the job title, maybes it doesn’t matter that’s just a paper thing, if say Mark Maguire was given redundancy as the mutual agreement obviously means somebody cannot come in and have the same job title? Hopefully there’s nothing to worry about but obviously everything’s up in the air, the clubs got no income, hasn’t had for nearly three months, the National League is still no nearer to deciding how the end of the season should play out than it was a month ago. Normally the fixture list would be out in a few weeks, season ticket holders would be renewing thus providing our income.
The other thing that bothers me is Mr Jesper has come in on the back of many staff being made redundant and that’s likely and quite understandably going to get people’s backs up.
Hartlepool United is never a club that’s quiet, at the minute there’s more questions than answers?

Its a strange one. He sounds more than capable, it all depends on what his remit is, a short term bish bash bosh to save Raj , stop him losing any more money and get him out of the club , clawing back as much of his initial investment as possible , before they both do a runner and leave the fans holding the baby , or a more long term, shake the club up , so that it becomes sustainable . He seems to have did okay at Darlo , but that was starting with a blank canvas, whereas here the club has what seems like terminal cancer. He talks of improving things off the field , but at the moment I will take that with a pinch of salt. In one of the articles below he talks about continuity , good luck with that one, how many staff has Raj got through so far?.

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... oria-park/

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... s-quakers/

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... can-found/

Certainly is , we will have to see how this one plays out?

Two years on from Mark Maguire being CEO where are we? I have spoken to Mark Maguire on several occasions on a match, usually by the ticket office or the shop which I went in every week to buy home & away shirts (got them October), a club puffa jacket (got it November & track suit bottoms (never got, size never available) always found him very pleasant, but also not sure how much he actually did? Something as simple as providing a bin bag or bin by the tunnel when the club had a bee in its bonnet about rubbish last year, never got it asked twice) . I emailed over the size of the shirts & kit & to ask why programme subscriptions were not available last season?Never got a reply yet.
The commercial thing to me is easy really , target everybody coming into the ground to spend 5 on top of admission (obviously we have on paper 3k season tickets for sake of argument), so improve the food, improve where things are sold- reopen the former Hanguses Hangout back to being a bottle bar or something for the kids, ensure programmers are available every game , maybes bring back static sellers on the way in, draw tickets more widely available with proactive sellers? Things like this, I wonder how many advertising boards were payed up as that was one thing Mark Maguire said he would start chasing up at the pre season meeting 2018/19 with Craig Hignett, Matthew Bates,Raj, Mark Maguire & another bloke in a suit? Not sure he was?

What the club doesn’t seem to grasp is it hemorrhages money, I would bet thousands were lost over the availability of replica kit last year, moving the shop a decent idea but stock was poor throughout from the start of the season onwards , at Christmas time there was very little stock in terms of shirts, team wear etc. The size of O’Neill’s kit quite frankly ridiculous, did they provide samples for the club etc? Hopefully that’s sorted or we get a new supplier , preferably local.

A lot of challenges ahead! We can’t really move forward before the National League decide what’s happening, if the season starts again our 8 contracted players are going to be a bit stretched !

Yep, it’s pretty simple principles:

Exploit every possible revenue stream and hammer down on costs. The latter is being done but the former is farcical.

I emailed MM several times about the club shop. It’s just not rocket science, look at previous sales and use this to forecast products types and volumes. Add other products you think may sell well on a trial basis. I know we went with O’Neills because Raj and MM wanted a “bespoke” kit rather than a Nike, Puma etc template, but what you can’t deny is that the volume of shirts and other apparel seen around the ground on match day was much higher when we had Just Sport running the shop and selling Nike kit. I usually buy both shirts and a few other bits of kit, but since we’ve had BLK and O’Neills I’ve only bought the home shirts due to quality and availability. And this isn’t about just wanting established brands, I’d have been happy with any decent football brand (I used to work for Mitre!) so long as the quality and availability are there.

For those of us who don’t live in Hartlepool a decent web shop is an absolute god send, and a source of income from those of us who can’t support the club by being in the ground every game, and ours is crap.

Good shout Kaplan Roar, did you get a reply from MM?
I would have expected O’Neills would have submitted sizes & samples once the deal was agreed, obviously not a 5 xl is at a push xl? Quite a few shirts round the ground yes but some looked like sausage skins! I was lucky & got home & away, I thought our away shirt was one of the best we have had for ages.
I do not live in Hartlepool either, only Durham so not that far but still a chew on to go through unless it’s match day. A good online shop is a must quite right, that needs developing.
Kit wise from what I’ve seen Errea are a decent shout, based in the North a East, product quality is good & bespoke. I also go to Spennymoor games when Pools are not on, few in my mates there have shirts, coats etc sizing is pretty accurate and coats & team wear are quite well priced. Choice of kit supplier is up to the club, I’d like though the fans to be given some input, say three shirt designs choose one in an online poll. Darlington have done this last few years & that gives the fans some input.
Ultimately as I said previously we litterally let money walk out of the door. An online presence now of say souvenir items, old programmes etc would give us some income when there’s nothing else coming in.

I spoke to MM last week. He said the strips for new season were agreed , bar dotting the I's and crossing the T's. I asked him who actually decided on what strip we should wear and asked if he thought it would be a good idea to give the fans a vote on the strip . He told me they sold 1900 replica tops last year , they cost the club 17 quid each. I asked him why weren't they on sale now , he said O'neills were busy producing PPE , which begs the question why haven't the club been selling face masks ,something I mentioned on here 6 weeks ago.

I think a good strip is important , and supplier is important too. I don't know how other clubs manage to do deals with Hummel , Macron etc yet we always seem stuck with some rag tag outfit like BLK or O'neills.

To be honest I would never think of the club selling face masks, not against it, but do any other clubs sell them? Anyway are club shops not closed because of the coronavirus situation?

A few clubs are selling them yes. Why do other clubs have to be selling them ? can we not be first ? why do we always have to follow rather than lead ?

If and when football is resumed , any fans allowed in may have to wear them , so makes good business sense to me , to wear a Pools face mask as opposed to one bought from Boots, plus you can wear them when travelling on public transport or at work.

Thank you for that Mr Horden, we are singing from the same hymn sheet! obviously shirts have a decent margin on them but obviously there’s not 21 margin once costs are taken into consideration , 1900 not a bad number but I wonder how many were home & how many away?Many fans like me buy both. If the sizing was better I’d reckon we’d even have sold more.
Yeah the ppe idea, why not? Say face masks 5 a piece half to the club, half NHS should be pennies to produce, plenty of handy people round here to make them, stick a badge on or could be embroidered maybe?
I looked on O’Neill’s website the other day Pools shirts still for sale there, it would be simple to put a link on the club shop link on the clubs website.

Put a link on the website? cant do that marra , there is a pandemic on , all the staff ( well those we have left ) have been furloughed blah blah blah ! Maguire has still been at the ground though. Seems other clubs can manage to keep things ticking over during difficult circumstances, As you say club could've had a clearance sale during the summer to raise money. When I was down the ground last week , the offices were in a right mess, full of junk, it was though they were waiting for a removal van to turn up and take everything away , a real Marie Celeste feeling, Something definitely not right at HUFC.

https://darlingtonfc.co.uk/