In his program notes Raj talks about the abuse of the matchday operations (ticketing and kiosks). He seems to be still rooting out certain people taking advantage of the club.

I reckon there is a good book to be written about the 'skeletons in the cupboard' discovered since he took over the club. It seemed there were weekly mentions of very dodgy deals which came out of the woodwork regarding the last twat chairmans tenure.
Anyone know any anecdotes of what they have been referring to over the years?

Crowds have gone up by about 1500 i wonder if they have finally rooted out the problem of dodgy turnstiles at pools.

are we implying that some of the ticket booth operators are giving it the ' one for me one for you' with the pennies ?

"the correct systems and procedures haven't necessarily been in place around our match day operations including ticketing and kiosks. Things have been open to abuse."

" have been working to ensure this doesn't continue to happen and they have already made a number of alterations to matchday operations and staffing."

"we have a lot of volunteers around the club who work very hard towards each matchday and it isn't fair on them or indeed paying ticket holders who continue to put their hard earned money into the club, to see certain people take advantage of that."

Strong words and actions from Raj. Well done. chairman.

From my memory it looked like some on the turnstiles were charging full price but giving you the concessionary part of the ticket meaning the operator pocketed the difference.

The new COO spoke in his interview about updating certain things and mentioned how we were behind in alot of areas. Im presuming this is one of them that needs addressing sharpish. Wonder what systems are in place to solve this ? Cashless gates ? Pre purchased tickets only ? A modern ticket operating system on the gates ?

Yes i can recall this.

as long as pools do not go down the line of those etickets for a smart phone or printing the things off. that would finish me off for life as i have neither on my posession and have no interest or need for either to live my life. every available system of payment should be used for all fans entering the ground. next thing will be cashless chip purchases and same for the half time draw.

Pools haven't reached the age of print yet to deliver the half time draw results, so I imagine a high tech solution is still some way off

Too late grandad, they're already doing both.

I printed my e-ticket for the Carlisle game on the 28th of August, and my son had his on his smartphone.

Like you I don't have a Devil's dildo, but at 56 I'm not so much of a Luddite that a printer is witchcraft to me...

thats all fine but why should i have to purchase anything just to obtain a pools matchday ticket when i have no use for it for anything else. its not being a luddite as i bought a printer years ago on a whim but never used it hardly so i sold it on.

Years ago, in the fifties pools got some really good gates and most people paid cash at the turnstiles. There were adult only turnstiles where everybody paid the same price and no tickets were issued, so fiddling like issuing a concession ticket whilst charging full price and pocketing the difference was not possible because the turnstile automatically counted the number that went through it and the corresponding cash, in theory, had to match the number of peopled clicked. Concessions had their own gate with the same procedure.

A while back I was looking at the crowds back then. It was interesting that the Man United gate of 17k was only a few hundred more than the previous home game against Darlo. 10k plus was normal.

Is the Vic fully cashless now? I don't know because I've always just used e-tickets.

I'm just glad Pools still produce printed programmes.

all that was too simple for the modern world. hate this pre booking of tickets or buying them for any game especially away ones. there is no way anyone can ever guarentee they will be at the game due to last minute illness or breakdowns, plus the late call off of games due to the weather with the farce of getting your money back as you cannot make the re arranged game.

I remember reading in the Mail where the reporter was commenting on the gate and he said something along the lines of "just over 10,000 attended Pools last home game, it makes you wonder whether the Hartlepools folk want a football team" Not the exact words but it is the gist of it. Just over 10,000 would be extremely welcome nowadays.


On ticketing, the match against Man Utd was all ticket and they were sold without any bother, yet the 18,000 or so who went to Cardiff had to purchase their tickets through a ticketing agency because the club allegedly couldn't cope with the demand. It took me ages to get our tickets because the ticketing agency were under instruction not to sell Hartlepool tickets to anybody with a South Yorkshire postcode. Sharon Precious eventually got the tickets for us.

You've got to get the tickets before kick off now, no more cash on the gate, so surely this problem is solved now?
As long as the turnstile operator's bar code scanner is working on match day, that is.

Current ground capacity is 7,865.

Five or six thousand is enough to generate a great atmosphere at the Vic, but we'd need to be closer to capacity every home game to justify investment in a bigger stadium. Rebuilding the Rink End with income generating facilities under the new stand and shifting away fans to another part of the ground would be a smart move.

I'm not old enough to remember the days of 10,000+ gates but experienced pitiful attendances of 1,000 -1,500 at times in the 1970s and 80s. The current fan base is in a good place, with loads of young 'uns coming to games and exceptional away support when Pools are on their travels. Onwards and upwards.

yes I remember the days of low crowds and being able to walk from one end to the other at half time without bumping into everyone in the 70,s and 80,s, saw lots of goals in them days but usually going in the Pools net

Never seen the stadium past its official capacity - where the hell did the other 2k or so fans go ? Did the North west Corner where the back of the CF pub is accommodate fans at all ? looks like it was once a stand and im sure years ago it had the terrace like bars on what folk would lean against.

Im sure the rules stated that the Vic would of had to of been all corners enclosed and capacity made bigger should we have been victorious in Cardiff that day ? Would be good to have a new Rink end with better facilities and give the town end up.

The FA Cup game against Leeds in the late seventies was attended by 16,000 fans. Lots more terracing than there is now. You can still see the remains of some of the terracing, especially in the corners. The Rink End was terracing as well. The Leeds fans were given the Rink End and it was chokker.

My mistake - I was at that one, in the Millhouse seats. Even they were overcrowded, which takes some doing as there's barely room for one backside never mind two!

Gave up sitting in the Mill House seats as sometimes it appeared we were the only ones who had actually paid to sit there, anyone could come in and the stewards were as effective as marshmallow barbed wire at controlling things.

ah so the corners of the ground where actually used as terraces. be interesting to see if i can find any images online of that Leeds game

Yes. The corner where the scoreboard is now was a decent size and held a few. There were terraces in all four corners and on all four sides. The Main stand only took up approx one third of the Clarence road side, the rest was terraces. In the fifties there was a tiny stand on the Mill House and the rest was terrace.
There must be old photographs/newsreel of games in the fifties, maybe you could start with the Mail, they must have some images in their archives. Good luck with your search. I think most of us would like to see the results.

Sir Harold Hornsey always used to stand on the terrace bit where the corner flag is now if I remember correctly.

On the topic funnily enough just found this pic of the Vic in 1989

unless i could get on the back row sitting in the mill house is my last choice at the vic. the seats are a backache waiting to happen. unless its raining standing there is best spot in the ground.

I have supported Pools since 1949 and talk of getting average crowds of 10/11000 is not correct in my memory. Yes we got these sort of crowds in big games such as Man Untd, Chelsea, Notts Forest etc. and local derbies at Xmas and Easter and I even remember 10000 crowd for the reserves when they played Bp Auckland in some cup competition just after they had won the Amature Cup
As for the Darlington crowd the week before the Man Untd game it was because you had to attend that game to get a ticket for the big match. This was common practice for all ticket games back then remember we did not have ticketing offices in those days.

The best average league gate that Pools have ever achieved was just under 10K. This was in season 1956/57. The club have had a number of five figure league gates since then but not on a regular basis. I would be interested to know when was the last time there was more than 10k in the ground.

I would guess the 1956/7 average gate was boosted by the Man Untd game as similar around that time with exciting cup games being all ticket and the fact you had to go to the previous home game to get a ticket.

I stood on this corner terrace for the promotion game vs Northampton in 1990/91 season. It was that full there was lads stood on the slopey concreted bit down the side. Usually went in the rink end but couldn't get in that day, was *rammed*

I was in the rink end that day, you could have seen me I was the grown man crying

A few stats on season 1956/57
Home league attendances over 9,000 ......13, including 9 over 10,000 and above
Home game before Man Utd was against Hull City (League) and the attendance was 9768.
Home game against Darlo (League) was October 20th and there were 13,202 in attendance. (over 14,000 at Feethams)
F A Cup round 1 v Selby Town Home Att 11,327
Round 2 v Blyth Spartans Away Att. 10,168.
Round 3 v Man Utd home att 17,264

Information source "In the mad crowd"

The official attendance that day was 6957.

A brilliant end to the season.
Mid table about February then a fairy tale finish.
Me first ever promotion season after about 14 years of mainly applying for Reallection.
If memory serves me well then that Northampton game was the last time you could swap ends at half time.
UTP.

We went there for the view from the top row. The youth team used to plunk themselves in front of us and eat like horses and it could safely be described as not very healthy food.... a muck spreading farmer would have given ten pound a bucket for their Shiite.

It just shows you how much fiddling was going on. There was 15k plus in the Leeds game late seventies - officially around 10k and that Northampton game was absolutely packed, definitely 10k plus.

think this type of fiddling is rife across the game. just wonder if there is and was a bit of a blind eye being turned on the many clubs that do this. even with the turnstile clicks i cannot see how anyone with some mechanical knowledge could not fiddle this. over the years there has been plenty who could fiddle bus ticket machines and were never caught.

Organised fraud on the gate and people sacked and reported to the police. Comments in todays programme.
Fucking rarfs.
Well done Pools in tracking this down.

Who is running this crime syndicate?

What next?
Stolen Debit cards that dont require a pin number.
If anyone lost a debit card top half of park road yesterday its getting handed in to the Lloyds Bank today.

Methinks this is why they stopped the etickets on phones

Well done

Handed in.
Hope the cardholders well off for a few beer tokens reward.

The ticket scam has made the BBC News now:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-59064255

Could they have found a more unflattering photograph of the Vic?
Oy Hobin, get that corner weeded!

After reading the BBC article, I ask the question is it only me who thinks so called who ‘fans’ who are happy to cheat the club out of money by getting in free or half price are not real fans at all.
If we all did it, there’d be no club.

I heard someone was makeing £200 a game with a concession ST getting past thru the fence 20 times from 2pm.
Surely the CCTV can result in a criminal charge by the police.

im all for a greener planet...but those weeds in the NWC are a bloody disgrace.!!!!