Posted in good faith. Does anyone know what's happened to Horden? Disagreed with most of what he said on here but enjoyed his posts and his opinions. Don't seem to have seen anything from him for ages. Does anyone know if he uses another name, has been ill, moved away to Darlington or worse? Any news would be welcomed folks.

I tried to contact him by PM when he first disappeared but didn't get any response.
I don't know any more than that.
I hope he is fit and well which is the main concern.

He's fine, I keep in contact with him regularly, spending most of his time visiting non-league and Scottish lower league footy, have joined him on a few occasions at Tow Law, Hebburn, Easington and most recently Newton Aycliffe.

That's good news, give him our regards.
As a matter of interest have you two spotted any up and coming talent that might interest Pools?

You see many players who stand out for their respective teams, but it's difficult to tell if they could step up 3/4 levels in the pyramid as I'm sure you well know.
Noticed in the televised FA Cup game last night that Sudbury had a forward whose recently had trials at Sunderland, Fleetwood and another league club but had a fairly anonymous game.

Thanks for that info lads. Glad he's still about.

Gateshead have a lad getting a few goals.

after watching the sudbury game and later the banbury one i doubt any player from either side would have interested darlo never mind us. year after year these southern based non league clubs somehow manage to scrape into the fa cup round 1 and mostly have one thing in common, they are crap. saying that the guy who got buxtons winner at york who sounds like a 1940,s LA Cop scores regularly and had league experiance a few years back but somehow his career fell away.

Not so crap St Albans part-timers beat Forest Green Rovers who head League Two.

when they look at the league table i doubt many of them will choke on their vegan breakfast after that result. they were not going to win the thing anyway.

The extra round (forgot what number) that features the same teams from step 2 always kills the remaining north east sides for the simple reason the National League North is far, far superior to the National League South. So you'll have far north teams never ever playing weaker southern counterparts. The fact their are several southern step 3 leagues and only one northern premier make it worse as well.

Gateshead have a few good players at the moment, mainly Macauley Langstaff and Cedwyn Scott. They're certainly the best North East non league side now.

He's hardly disappeared...

And as if by magic, said yakker invades the board on cue......

Does a return warrant a FUCK OFF as well or is that just reserved for new arrivals?

Please come back Horden. Your contributions have been sorely missed by yours truly.

Yes come back Horden.

Where Ronnie is concerned, always.

yes, puts up some good stuff on here when he is not having a personal ding dong with someone else.

Which was most of the time

To be fair he's been logging in for months and not posting like a lot of people on this forum

its not as if there has been nothing to post about these last few months pools related or anything else.

Some people like to read forums but don't take part for various reasons but that of course is their choice.
On top of that quite a lot of sports journalists visit the forums because they are too idle to get off their fat arses and do the legwork.
We have always attracted a fair number of guests who obviously like to read and be entertained and if we enhance someone's day by our deliberations then that is no bad thing, especially if they are housebound or live on their own. The football club tune in as well, probably in hope that now and again we might talk common sense and they just might pick up something worthwhile as well as being au fait with the mood of the fans. People who come on here to promote a particular agenda but don't get anywhere seem to come and go, especially when they realise that knocking their heads against a brick wall achieves nothing but a headache.
There is an element of worthiness everywhere, even among us lot.

well the club has certainly ignored the many complaints of fans about replica kits and lack of certain sizes over the years. this is a regular topic every time someone decides to visit the club shop.

It's an area where there hasn't been a lot of success in recent years but previous regimes had a lot to do with the supply problem. When bills don't get paid on time, supply tends to wane a bit. We had a situation where the laundry the club used refused to return the players shirts until unpaid bills were sorted and then we had eighteen months of furlough where manufacturing units were mothballed and staff furloughed, nobody attending matches never mind club shops. When things started getting back to normal suppliers of most things established a pecking order whereby customers who regularly paid on time got preferential treatment.
When we regain credibility and have reasonable trust and working relationship with a decent supplier, it might just change.
The previous owners of the club were never going to be truthful to the fans and say......the reason the fans shirt/kit supply is in chaos is because we are on stop and we are a bad debt risk.
I believe the current regime will address and rectify these woes but as always there is a list of priorities and getting us back in the EFL was deemed the main one.
Raj is a businessman who has shown good progress on some fronts but had to put other necessary projects on the back burner. Fulfilment of his agenda for the club is targeted for 2025. I'll wait patiently to see how much he gets done by then. We've made steady strides on the pitch, now let's repeat those strides off the pitch.

Are there any statistics over the last few years of how many people were posting on here and by how many people that has reduced (assuming that it has, but it seems to have) over time?

Your best bet would be to use the Internet Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160504014 ... /index.php

On the index page at the bottom you can see user statistics, who's online how many etc.

Looking at a few dates myself, it seems activity wise the bunker peaked around 2013 and quickly went downhill in the following years...hmmm...that happened with match attendance too didn't it?

Cough IOR Cough Coxall.

Cheers for that.

Yeah, not a surprise that traffic reduces when things are less than positive football-wise.

I suppose you could equally argue that sites like facebook and twitter gradually made forums archaic.

yes, victories cause far less traffic than a defeat does.

Lets just hope for a heavy defeat tonight then...........

Exactly that. The difference of course is that we are beholden to no one on content or what is said. It’s always been hands off moderation and on the whole has been self moderating. I have always refused to ban reasonable Darlo fans despite huge pressure at times. In fact I don’t think permenant bans of any kind have yet reached double figures since the bunker’s inception in 2005. Moreover we are not controlled by heavy handed moderation such as Facebook and the like.

Ban Sussex was all thanks I got from PJ when I told him to seek help with the menopause. :ungrateful git he was

He was having hot flushes when he wanted you banning to be fair.

There is a fine balance to moderating forums, especially very large ones. If you make It too lenient it just becomes unpleasant or worse, full of spambots. If you make it too strict, it becomes bland and dry.

Facebook isnt so bad. But the things I've seen people get banned for on twitter are appalling. It's abundantly clear the sites mods want to pursue certain narratives.

But what those sites lack in comparison to forums are structured and in depth discussions. I never post on Twitter, only view, despite the fact I do have opinions on what's getting posted it's challenging to summarise a point in 40 characters or less.

Good point, I’ve spent a fair bit of my life in the last 16 years deleting spam accounts and Russian IP addresses.

As in the diagram this evening...

Good thing you keep moderating this place Mr. I. The Uncovered board is unreadable now due to the viagra selling comrades, no wonder the loid population have migrated here!