Thank you all for taking the time and trouble to listen and comment. I'm sorry if some of you felt insulted by the way I suggested e-mails are sent to the club. The intention was to be humourous but it appears that that wasn't clear to all. Ah well.

I hear loud and clear the many strong negative views expressed here. I'm particularly grateful to those who have expressed positive views and support. Maybe this is not the anthem for Hartlepool United and its supporters which I had hoped it would be, in which case I have failed. As an experienced songwriter and lifelong Hartlepool supporter I had hoped to create something that felt a bit old-fashioned, traditional or classical (somewhere between a folk song and an anthem like 'Rule Britania') that was specific to Hartlepool and had the potential to unite club and supporters.

It has always amazed me at how diverse musical tastes can be and how something which sounds wonderful to me can sound so abhorrent to others (and vice versa). I'd hope to somehow transcend that but clearly I haven't managed to do that.

It's good that so many of you are on side with Poolie of Kent though!

All the best.

Excellent. I look forward to hearing it.

Thanks for these queries. Overall, I wanted to try to make the words a bit special, rather than stick to things that were predictable.

White-striped blue. Could have said "blue and white stripes" but I wanted to make it a bit more interesting. "White-striped" means "with white stripes", so "white-striped blue" means "blue with white stripes". "White striped white" would be Leeds, surely?

"Rise or cool". Well the obvious thing would have been to go for exact opposites (e.g. "rise or fall"), but I thought it would make the words a bit more distinctive to avoid the obvious. Also I wanted to have a less harsh, more supportive alternative to "rise". I suppose I could have gone for "rise or be a bloody disaster" but I rather liked "cool".

Agreed: "cool" doesn't rhyme with "blue". It's not supposed to. It's an ABAB rhyme pattern i.e. the first line rhymes with the third, the second line rhymes with the fourth. "Pool" rhymes with "cool". "Blue" rhymes with "you". I'm not a big fan of rhyming for rhyming's sake, but I thought that might be appreciated. (Looks like I got that one wrong too!)

I'm happy to discuss the other levels on which you consider the song to be "wrong" if you'd be kind enough to specify what they are. I appreciate you taking the time to raise individual points about the song. Thanks.

Yeah that would be good. Personally I prefer the Fall's version, but the Kinks' version is one of their many quality songs.

Edd, respect for recording a song about pools, respect for coming on here after being totally hammered for it, you have big big balls i'll give you that.

Thanks. Not "totally" hammered. There were 3 people (I think) who said they liked it.

The reception on the Bunker has however been closer to universal rejection than elsewhere (where it's been more mixed - I'm not saying it has been universally positive in other places!) so I was quite surprised and disappointed. I don't usually try to write songs to please others - I'm usually much more selfish than that. However, this WAS an attempt to appeal to a wider audience and the verdict here has been a fairly clear thumbs down. Life's like that sometimes. I love the song & I'll continue to blast it out of my home hi-fi and car stereo. My wife (who sings backing vocals on it) also likes it - and she finds a lot of my stuff "difficult" or "weird"! Maybe it'll grow on some people (although I suspect many here will be highly dubious of that possibility).

??

I'm paying you a compliment, the only one you've had on this thread, you should take it!

Please see above. Wires crossed I think.

hahaha thanks Mr Rules. Sounds like it's dangerous to listen to it repeatedly. Apparently quite a few people from the Bunker have been doing that though for whatever reasons. Thank you also to those of you who have set up links elsewhere & embedded the video on other sites too. That's much appreciated.

The intention though, Mr Rules, is not to get people rocking. It's not a rock song or a pop song or whatever. It's intended as an anthem - something where you stand up and sing/shout passionately at the top of your voice along with hoardes of other people (yeah I know - I can dream though, can't I?) to express loyalty and support.

if thats your intention mate, my advise would be to write a better song

soz like, but that un's shit

Salty - thanks for your thoughts.

As already stated (albeit a little indirectly), judgements of quality in music are subjective. Like many people here, I too tend to reject music if it doesn't fit with my own tastes. Many people confuse judgements of taste with judgements of quality however. I accept that "Victoria!" is not to your taste and it's not to the taste of the vast majority of people on this forum who have expressed an opinion on this thread. With the presumption that those people are representative of the Hartlepool fans in general, I accept that it appears that I have failed in my stated aims of producing something which is popular with (and likely to be used by) Hartlepool fans in general to express their support for the team and to help bring the club and its fans closer together.

Most people who have offered 'criticisms' of "Victoria!" have not gone into any/much detail. Fair enough. There's no obligation to do so. The ultimate judgement (as I've stated above) is whether or not the anthem (regardless of its quality) appeals to the broad base of Hartlepool fans.

Nevertheless, I'm more than happy to discuss particular aspects of the anthem's construction as you can see from some of my previous posts. Specific constructive criticism is more than welcome. For me and for anyone else who wishes to venture into this territory, that would be much more useful. For example, do Pools fans want something in a particular style (e.g. rap, rock, etc)? What sort of themes would they want the words to express? What sort of instrumentation would fit the purpose best? Despite the many posts on this thread, it's perhaps unfortunate that there have been very few posts which have resembled anything like constructive criticism. I would like to think that that sort of blanket negativity is not truly representative of most Hartlepool fans. What do you think?

Dear Mr ADG - thanks for your useful points, eloquently made. I agree with most of them. I'd like to clarify my position about 2 or 3 of them, starting with the final one. I felt a new anthem would be useful and that there was a particular gap that could be filled. Just because you already have a set of tools, doesn't mean that an additional one can't be useful. That's not the same as a need for a new one - so in that respect, again I agree with you. As for your first point, I never claimed to understand all Poolies although you yourself implicitly claim to understand us/them (and if there's universal agreement with your points then maybe you're right). However your first point seems to hang on my disagreement or ignorance of the other points. Perhaps I should emphasise though that I don't claim to fully understand anybody.

There's a further point I'd like to add on the "need"/"usefulness" issue. I perhaps don't use this particular forum as much as you do, but I'm aware that elsewhere at least there has been dissatisfaction expressed with the selection of music played by the club to represent it. For example "hey hey we're the Monkees" isn't right. We're the monkey hangers, not the monkeys.

You mentioned humour. Did you spot the humour in the words of "Victoria!" and, if so, do you feel that it counts as Poolie humour?

Cant we just lock this thread?

If it bores you why don't you just stop reading it?

Why dont you just take your face for a shit?

Classic Tree.