Your statement sums up why hardly anyone turned up

Guffaw!

chip exactly! people are forking out hundreds for season tickets at the minute who simply cannot afford to go pay silly prices for meaningless friendlies, yes it is the centenery tournament but it is still quite expensive.

on top of that i think it has something to do with the fact the fans do NOT trust or want wilson in charge of the first team

and food and bastard petrol!!! At this rate all our cash will be spent on feeding ourselves and going to work. Football doesn't even come into it.

and gas and electricity going up as im with EDF! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

oh yeah I forgot about that as well.

I'm amazed they expected a crowd.

FFS we were playing Sunderland reserves, insulting and embarrassing for our centenary tournament which they tried to bill as 'prestigious' I'd rather they invited Darlo.

They should have charged a fiver tops.

It not as if we had loads new signings to see, just the mistakes of last season like Budtz.

I'm all of a sudden feeling a little pessimistic about next season which isn't really like me.

They have a good right not to be happy. The total apathy amongst fans to help celebrate 100 years of HUFC was nothing short of embarrasing. This event must have cost the club a lot of money to stage - expenses for opposing teams, stewards, caterers, referees, police etc etc. They will certainly have lost money from it. Regardless of the opposition ( and Sunderland sending a second string was nothing short of disgraceful) this was an opportunity to celebrate 100 years of football. The cost was £25 for 4 games (£6,25 a game) and u 16s got in free with a paying adult. Hardly overly excessive IMHO. The sun shone for both days, the beer was £2 a pint - not bad, and all four games were highly competitive.

I can't believe that some people actually feel pleased that this was such a flop - it's OUR team FFS. Are you really happy that the whole thing was so embarrasing?

OK, some of the organising could have been better - especially some sort of entertainment between games etc - but this is no reason for this once in a hundred year celebration to have been so poorly attended.

We must be a laughing stock - and it seems that some are quite happy about it.

I can now stand back and prepare to be shot down by people who call themselves SUPPORTERS of HUFC. We don't need any Loids on this board to take the pi$$ out of the Club there are those amongst us who seem to take great pleasure and delight of doing this themselves.

I suppose its all Wilsons fault anyway!!!!!

"next weekend we are going to the stockton fringe festival which is also free."

is this a hairdressers convention or something?

Like it has been said in previous threads HUFC have had 100 years to prepare themselves for this, however they decided to send invites out just before Xmas. In MY HONEST opinion this tournament should have been planned 3 years ago with the teams named then!!!! If that had been the case then the fans could have bought tickets last season when times were a bit more rich in the pockets. Having said that the marketing of HUFC is so dire that they paniced and accepted dross from sunderland.

Like Parmo said the Newcastle game should have been the celebratory game after all they were our first ever oponents. But typical Pools they thought they would host a tournament to try and cash in on the situation. This will have been a massive reality check for all of the Higheracy at Pools and should realise it is now time to listen to the fans!!!!!!! after all they are supposed to be "THE TOWNS CLUB!!!!!!

It has been a point of embarassment from the fans point but like things have been said previous they are using this Centenary Year to the extreme to cream more money from our pockets. Come on Hodcoft did you really expect a sell out????

Even if it we had Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea as the other three teams in the tournament I still wouldn't have been there. I have just shelled out £207 for a season ticket and £40 for a new shirt. I am going away to the New Forest for a week on Wednesday and have to pay £150 to hire a car, we need to have air conditioning for the littleun so she is comfortable, there is nothing worse than having a baby screaming in the back of the car when you are driving. Plus it wouldn't fair on the mrs who looks after my daughter all week while I am at work for me to say to her right I am off out all weekend you will have to watch the littleun again.

Excellent post. I'm sorry to say I didnt go myself but for anyone to laugh at it being a failure wants their head looking at I

times change

I would have been at the Mags game if it had been marketed that way. There was no way I was going to spend the best part of 2 days inside of VP, spending most of the time waiting for something to happen, or even worse watching at least 2 matches I didn't have the slightest interest in. The Mags game could well have been a sell-out if it had been used correctly, and would have brought a lot more attention to the club than this ill fated 'tournament' has done this weekend.

You are spot on, once they released that crowd pulling opposition could not be obtained it should have been cancelled and replaced with a one off game against top European or Premiership opposition on a Wednesday night (a lot of people have other things to do in summer on a weekend). We played AZ Alkmaar last season, if you got a Hamburg (much more relaistic for a one off game) or any top side and paraded a few legends from at half time the Vic would have been packed to the rafters, also we'd have a bit of 'feel good' about the place going into the new season not this slight embarrassment.

Who with half a brain thought this would be well attended?

Most of the folk within Pools?

Are you implying that they thought it through?

That's even worse if they did.

Chill out Chris. Most people are only too well aware of where the blame lies. Saying "we should not have played Sunderland reserves" is not the same as saying "Sunderland took the piss": it's more akin to saying "Hartlepool showed the most complete lack of imagination and foresight I've ever seen from a so-called professional organisation".







Mind you, though it might not be Su'land's fault, I still don't like 'em

I still think it's a kick in the teeth from Sunderland, and a massive lack of respect.

To be fair, it sounds like the big guns pulled out at short notice leaving Pools to scrape about for anyone to play. But Sunderland third team..............

It may have been Sunderlands third team but the fact is they were still too strong for us and beat us. Good job they didnt send the first team really!

You would hope that the event would be a close run thing with no great side to make it one-sided. That was achieved!

But there was still only around 2000 there for the Alkmaar game and I think that the club lost money on that game so maybe they are a bit reluctant to try to organize another game like that for a while

the gate would have been a lot higher for a weekend against AZ but they were playing smoggies so we lost out.

I'm sure the same mistakes won't happen again