Don't know about you lot but I feel very disengaged from Pools. No doubt we'll get people rolling out the 'its my club' or the even more facile 'its my church' but 'fraid not. I feel like a customer of a business rather than an integral part of a community club. The only news coming out of the business has a cost attached to it; buy this, bet on this, enrol in that etc. I never thought I'd say it but I'm becoming fairly disinterested in what happens on and off the pitch.

Personally I think its down to the spin machine regime where Pools don't give out any information on anything unless its sanitised and rubber stamped several times. Contrast this to ten years ago when Paul Mullen used to answer direct questions with fairly direct answers on the message boards.

I have never in my existence felt so uninterested in a new season.

I have a feeling that the core of the problem, and hence the real reason of any perceived apathy, is the manager. It is the opposite of what it was like to be a Pools fan, compared to when Neale Cooper was here. Those two seasons under Cooper were the most enjoyable times for me as a Pools fan -the only bad spell was that second season where we lost 8 away games on the bounce, but even then we won all the home games in the same period.
The business of fans knowing what goes on inside the club is a thing of the past. Personally speaking, so long as the owners keep running the club as they do, I don't think many will complain.
If the football is entertaining, most folks will be happy. The fact is, a lot of the time the football last season was dire, and we could have easily been pulled right into the relegation scrap but for one or two key results at crucial times (eg the Port Vale match at home, Oldham away).
If we get pulled into a battle this time, and if the warning signs are there from early in the season, then for once the board should act and get a new man in charge as soon as any problems of visibly struggling for results become apparent. Wilson should have gone for his persistent piss poor selections and chopping and changing, yet remarkably both he and the team survived last time around. This time there are no teams in administration or anybody obviously so poor as Port Vale, and if we get off on the wrong foot I believe we will struggle the entire campaign with this man in charge. I hope I'm wrong, but the prospect of Budtz, Foley and Robson playing regular first team football turns my blood cold, I really fear for us with players of that "calibre" in the side, because you can bet that no single other team in this League will have players in their first XI as bad as those three.

Quote : I just can't see how he can get them fans back on side.

EASY! Sack wilson

I was going to go but decided not even though I made the mistake of getting a weekend pass. Partly because of lack of money and partly because it didn't excite me. Paying £40+ over the weekend to get there and back and have something to eat etc etc didn't seem worth it to see the Smackems Reserves.

I would be curious to see what events actually occured? I am expecting that former Pools legends were quite rightly paraded.

As for IOR, I don't think their the problem as such, although it does get on my tits how Pools is geared up to making money from fans and I don't overly appreciate being told to buy this every couple of days and being sent sms messages for pointless things considering on how much I already spend on Pools.

I think the problem stems from the way we play football and the attitude of the players. The players seem up for it when it's against Leeds, Carlisle, Swansea, Leyton (when they were top) but seem to be going through the motions against the Port Vale, Cheltenhams etc.

Then more often than not we get the good old "we were unlucky" or "the boys tried their best" even though both are clearly not true. If we were shiit, then Cooper would say we were shiit. If Cooper made a mistake then he'd admit it. If they didn't try hard then Cooper would give them extra training.

Cooper was also able to sacrifice his own feelings towards players for the benefit of the team. He didn't like Boyd's attitude but when it changed he played him. Wilson doesn't like Porter's work rate but when he tries hard and plays well he gets put on the bench. He doesn't like Monkhouse so he doesn't play as much as he should considering he is by far our best left winger. The result is painful to watch, we have to see our team making the same mistakes and running into the same brick walls week after week.

We knew for ages that Clark was a better defender than Antwi long before Wilson played him. We knew for ages that our strike partnership lacked creativity and we got glimpses of Porter but it took Moore walking out before he was given a chance. Bloody hell it took 5 matches (not including the matches he was suspended for and cup matches) before Wilson decided to play Humphreys ahead of the abysmal Elliott and then at the first opportunity he played Elliott for 8 matches in a row. We knew for ages that Butdz was about as solid diarrhoea but it took him until March to play ALB.

How frustrating is that?

And I've no doubt he'll carry the same grudges into next season and we'll be screaming for certain players that he doesn't like to play.

And when your continingly frustrated then it's easy to become disillusioned, especially when your team can be much better than the ways it's preforming.

I still have a shred of optimism and I hope I am proved wrong but I have a nasty feeling this may evaporate in a few weeks.

This weekend for example. They said that there would be things to see/do at the ground. Yet no details were ever published. First time for a long, long time not attended pre season friendlies. No interest in them. As said very disallusioned at the moment.

You all know who I blame.

Go on give us a clue then

I hope everyone remembers that this thread had nowt to do with me.