Yes, looks like Durham are down sadly, rlegated on the last game of the season :cry:

Sack the manager!!!!!

Too late! The rules state you have to do it within the first ten games.

Is that why Dibbs is panicking over Wilson?.....

No they don't, because they're never there, because they're always playing internationals, fool

Even Onions got called away for int'l duty - obviously they know nothing of cricket, whereas myself and Elvis know plenty

There are too many international duties for cricketers these days. They should cut down on them because things happen like this to clubs like Durham.

And anyway, Durham are still the youngest professional county. Promotion itself was admirable

Were little Durham overachieving?

The little down trodden man theory to which I think you refer is not just restricted to sport though. Maybe we, in the north are bread to assume the role of the little guy. Shall we try and change the image or just get on with putting up with sh*t :?:

Not strictly true though eh?? We realistically accept that we have our moments where we lack quality. And until the EU, y'know, them who're filling us up with Poles, Bulgarians and Rumanians, poured a heap of cash towards Hartlepool as an economic redevelopment area, same as they have in Worksop, the social and socio-economic outlok WAS bleak in Hartlepool. And everyone had it, and to an extent, still has it, to live with.

Now we all want better, that's why you have so many exiles knocking about on here, but wanting better and being given it, are two completely different things. Unfortunately our legacy is a crap team and a desperate town. Pretending otherwise doesn't make it different, even if we did fly for a good few years. A turd is still a turd even if you dress it as a princess.

From an outsiders point of view looking in, bare in mind I come from the multicultural metropolis that is Stockton this talk of a turd always being a turd saddens me greatly. Are we always just to accept our lot, can people, groups of people and regions not change? I hope so. Hartlepool is not so far down in the gutter as you (pooliekev) would have us believe, I have been to Blackpool, Grimsby, Workington and Bradford in the last 3 months I can say that Hartlepool has much more going for it than those areas. My wife teaches at English Martyrs i hartlepool and so I have a small insight into the next generation of Hartlepudlians, they are a talented, clever, witty and socially aware bunch, she has had kids of 16 leave school with 9 A+ GCSE's (no matter what you think of them in comparison to the O Level they are our only barometer), what of these kids, are you (pooliekev, I am notpicking on you here) suggesting that they just get downt he job centre and accept what is coming, should they go to college and Uni only to spend the next 10 years wearing a fake London accent and bemoaning how crap life was back in hartlepool? Luckily a lot of these kids have a bit go in them and will go and do well in life AND tell people that they learned their trade in hartlepool, not only will they tell people, they will sing it from the rooftops and be proud. A bit more pride round here wouldn't go amiss :cry:

You're right Mr Antitheist.

I work in Stockton and that always reminds me how far out of the gutter Hartlepool actually is and what we have going for us.

Your right, Stockton is probably further down the path to capitulation, which is why no good firms work there and the poor ones that are still left end up getting the worst staff in any given field, sad but true and you said it yourself. However there are enough people like myself to make sure that the sh*t don't win the day.

Durham can't exactly have been overachieving when they don't have access to key team members... that's just silly.

Hopefully so yes, and moderate your thinking here a bit. You seem to have missed the bit about the social engineering that HAS taken place in Hartlepool. I didn't and wouldn't say there are no worse places than Hartlepool. I have never said that I'm not proud of being a Hartlepudlian. I am saying the place carries a legacy, and whether we like ot or not, opportunities for young people ARE limited in Hartlepool. Isn't the one hospital under threat?? That's the medical profession gone then?? One example. Surely 'there's worse places' isn't a waterproof defence??

In another hundred years, no-one is going to throw the name Hartlepool in with Sheffield, Derby, Huddersfield and a host of towns and cities that have revitalised themselves after losing their principle industries. Even in the boom sixties Hartlepool had an unemployment issue and we were always at 20% when Britain was at 5%. Recession has been a way of life for a large slice of Hartlepools existance.

So yes, maybe turd was an attempt at a flip snapshot which fell flat. But it'll take an awful lot more than one generation of vibrant students to lose the reputation of 100 years of depression, no matter how proud we are in our adversity.

I'm just glad that having worked on a JV with such dross as Amec in the past that there are much worse firms to work for than the one that I do.

A couple of good points which I certainly take on bored but the entire nation is now not much more than a service provider, we don't create/mine/build anything of any worth, so Hartlepool needs to adapt. The one main stumbling block of the Sixties and seventies was location, in such a modern world with all it's technologies there is no need for location to be a burden. Stockton, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Darlington are all in a belt of England that had one huge, major asset that has now gone, could the people here be the next asset worth selling on? Even the ripster has some use, allegedly

Closing the facility at Holdforth Road is not necessarily a bad long term move.

The problem is where they intend to replace it.

If it is replaced within the town, eg A689 near the Steelworks, then no problem, it is still central to the area that it serves, ie Stockton, Hartlepool and East Durham.

If they move it to Stockton it is a scandal as it means putting it at the southern end of it's geographical area and however bad that would be for us it would be even worse for people from areas such as Peterlee.

When you consider all the dinosaur industries that closed down or shrank and the many thousands of jobs that were lost in the 60s, "even" is perhaps not the right word. You don't recover from such sweeping changes overnight. The town went from prosperous to desperate in less than ten years. Going into 1961 there was full employment. Then the William Gray bombshell hit.

William Gray
CMEW
Docks
South Durham North Works
Siemens/AEI
Richardson Westgarth
Also ICI Billingham which employed a couple of thousand Poolies

not to mention a whole range of dependent industries and businesses

Repeated stab wounds that the town did well to recover from AT ALL.

So yes, recession has been a way of life for the last 45 years. And that's starting to be "living memory" for the majority of people.

Wasn't the old Samsung site earmarked for a new hospital :?:

Even though my dad's on the board of 12 directors at Durham CCC and former president of both Hartlepool CC and the NYSD League?

Pools are between under- and over-achieving this year. It's too hard to call.

Anyway, back to the original thread. Thanks to Mushy at Sussex and Benkenstein and Gibson, a draw and we'll stay up by half a point! Rain yer bastad, rain!

No more play today due to rain. Durham have 14 wickets remaining with one day left. Surely they can hold out for one day, especially as Yorkshire have already done enough to stay up?

Is only one team relegated? I thought it was Notts and either Durham or Yorks to go down.

Middlesex and Nottingham go down. Notts were awful today, we just need a draw.

This thus negates Dibble's arguments present, past and most probably future.