Now we all all know the IOR are all round good guys who want the best for OUR club but I would like to ask the assembled poolies what EXACTLY are the objectives of IOR ?
Where exactly do they want us to be in Five Years time?
Does a ground for an relatively unsuccesful bottom to mid table Division One Club cost less than one for a Championship Club?
In the opinion of the assembled poolies are we actually UNDER achieving, punching BELOW our weight?
Finally is Turner a fat useless clooless c unt or is he just doing as he's told??

Ben its time to get the water bottle out!

Well, you know, we've never had it so good. Ours is not to question why.

very valid questions

There are those who dare not ask them for fear of a tirade from others on the boards - but how on this planet they can be satisfied with Turner is the ultimate piss take

Average Attendance Rankings to 13.3.10
Team Pld Average
1 Norwich City (1) 24630
2 Leeds United (2) 24207
3 Southampton (10) 21037
4 Charlton Athletic (3) 17058
5 Huddersfield Town (7) 13077
6 Milton Keynes Dons (8) 10228
7 Millwall (4) 10044
8 Southend United (22) 9071
9 Swindon Town (6) 7989
10 Bristol Rovers (9) 6785
11 Brighton & Hove Albion 6334
12 Brentford (15) 6129
13 Gillingham (17) 5859
14 Exeter City (21) 5644
15 Colchester United (5) 5592
16 Tranmere Rovers (20) 5535
17 Wycombe Wanderers 5459
18 Carlisle United (12) 5132
19 Leyton Orient (14) 4890
20 Oldham Athletic (19) 4849
21 Yeovil Town (11) 18 4349
22 Stockport County (24) 4260
23 Walsall (13) 4081
24 Hartlepool United (16) 3457

Punching below our weight?

We are a very small club with a 90 tradition of being absolute shit. We are in the third tier.

Despite almost everyone on here three weeks ago announcing that we were certainties to be relegated, we will stay up. We often lose to much bigger clubs but we often beat bigger clubs that historically we never could realistically expect to, but now brush aside- like Carlisle.

Being comfortable in the Third tier for a club with conference crowds and precisely no pulling power for potential signings (ie north-east coast, piss poor home support) represents success.

We've heard loads this weekend about new records for the club being set. Here's one most people have forgotten. we are about to stay in the Third Tier for 4 consecutive years for the first time in our miserable history.

Anyone queuing up to applaud IOR and Turner for that? No, didn't think so.

A few questions/points:-

Where is your crystal ball?

Mick Tait and Houchen had a better away record then Turner as did Cooper and Wilson, Turner is inept

You never sniffed glue at school, when did you start?

If the team were playing to their potential we would move up that table too.

pde182 is living on another planet, simple as that.

just thinking if the worst happened and turner managed to get us relegated do you think this team is good enough and has the gumption to get promoted or are they just all piss and wind and think they are better than what they are when in fact they are gutless journeymen who probably would'nt get in darlows team

I would probably applaud IOR for that as it is obviously an acheivement. Applaud Christ Turner?? Certainly not. If he had been her for those full 4 years there is no way we would still be in this division. Our attendances may be low this season (largely due to CT in my opinion) but the backing CT has had has been out of proportion to our attendances. He has has much better backing than managers of some better supported clubs yet we are looking very poor. His managerial record speaks for itself. I will only applaud him if he resigns or gets us playing to our potential.

Really? How many wins at Norwich, Leeds, Southamption , Millwall etc did they pick up?

Oh no, thats right, we were playing against Halifax and Scarborough in the pub league in front of 1600.

About as many as turner...

Yeah but to be fair Taity and Houchen werent given anywhere near the support from the club that Tubby has had. We may be up against better teams these days but our wage bill is light years ahead than it was back then.

Neither has Turner, but we never lost as many on the trot under them despite the fact they had nowhere near the funding he has


Chris Turner gets whatever he wants to spend more or less, regardless of the crowds we get

He has failed at each team he has managed since he left us and looks like doing so again

pde147 is just giving his opinion and trying to prove it with a statistical basis. I don't agree with his sentiment but he's a good poster who isn't afraid to say how he feels despite being in a small minority. Your 9 word retort adds nothing to the thread and makes you look like a tit.

hth.

Using Tait and Houchen as just two examples of former Managers, Houchen lost 37 of the 73 games in charge which is 50.68%, Tait lost 45 of the 115 in charge which is 39.13%, Turner in his current spell has lost 35 of the 67 in charge which is 52.24%.

The other two were relieved of their duties.

I also trust pde147's opinion over yours given that he regularly goes to games home and away as opposed to you who has been about 3 times in as many years.

What colour you wearing at 5-a-side tomorrow so i can wear the opposite?

Also I'm not a fan who relates average attendance to league position, otherwise whats the point, maybe we should'nt play for points we'll just have the team with the biggest crowds at the top and the one with the least at the bottom.

There'd be no point in the smaller towns/cities taking part. But surely thats a better judge of a good manager, a person who can take a poorly supported club through a period of relative success with limited funds/options ie:- Stockport, Scunthorpe, Colchester, Burnley.

We seem to have become settled with ambitionless mediocrity from within the club, and unfortunately it's rubbing off on some of the fans also.

Meowww - I detect a little bit of tension. For what it's worth though I also think that pde is a good poster despite him being wrong in my opinion.

Chris Turner made his own bed when he left for Sheff Wed, if he had been successful at Sheffield or Stockport then maybe people would think different but many believe that he is only here because he has been a failure elsewhere. Would any other league one club employ him as a manager?

I tried my best to give him a chance at the stat of the season but his comments in the press and baffling decisions make him impossible to relate to. Has anyone sung 'Chrissy Turners Blue and White Army' or 'One Chrissy Turner' since he returned? They might only be songs but they represent how fans are feeling. The atmosphere is shite because many people struggle to get behind a man who is impossible to relate to, I know Chris is a nice bloke and i also believe he wants Pools' to be successful but I think he needs to realise that he isn't the man to bring success. It's sad but the Turner as manager isn't going to work long term...

Turner's stats, this time round , speak for them self.

In 66 games he has won 18, yes that's right 18. I'll bet even the most staunch Turner supporter would have thought he had a better win ratio than that. That works out at a win ratio of 27.3%

Scott(spit spit spit) in his first season as a manager won 11 out of 39, a win ratio of 28.2%.

Now can some player please get Turner to smack him. ???????

But being serious again, His current record puts him behind the following GREAT managers in Pools history

John Bird, John Duncan, Billy Horner, Ken Hale, Len Ashurst. Manager's who had no money whatsoever to build teams.

Turner has built virtually a full squad this season, yet we had conceded 55 goals after 35 games last season, this season we have conceded 55. Yet we have a right back (we didn't last season) we have at least a defender at left back (we didn't last season) and we have a holding midfielder(we didn't last season) we also have a goalkeeper( we didn't last season)

There is still one common denominator and that is the manager, a manager with no tactical nous a manager who seems to think the only subs allowed are like for like.

Where would Wilson have us now with the backing Turner has had. Yes it's a hypothetical question but I believe we wouldn't be far from where he has Swindon now. He constantly put square pegs in round holes, maybe if he could have brought in round pegs to fill those round holes he would have improved us, and his win ratio was 43.6%

Wilson's teams also won over 50% of the points played for winning 203 points out of 399. Turner's teams have won just over a third of the points they've played for. Winning 68 points out of 198.

Now lets put those figure into context over a season. 46 games played( 138 points) Wilson wins 69, in a bad league may get a team in the play off's. Turner wins 46points, even in a bad league that gets you relegated.

Now people will say I can use figures to prove what ever I want, but those win ratios(%) and points won by Wilson/Turner are correct, Ok by putting them over a season is using them in my favour. We have 38 points now from a possible 105 that works out at
0.36 points every 3 points played for. Over 46 games that's 49.95, round it up, call it 50.

That's no improvement on last season.

Another useless facts is we are 5 points worse off than this stage last season and our goal difference is 6 goals worse. Now it takes no working out that if we have conceded the same amount of goals at this stage of the season compared to last season then we have scored 5 goals LESS this season.

Now as a certain manager said tactics don't matter there's a goal at the end of their pitch and a goal at our end of the pitch. If we put the ball in their net more than they put it in our end, we win.

I think we will stay up because I think there are 4 worse teams than us and if we beat Stockport, Brighton, and Exeter then we are almost there, but we have to beat them. It will be a lot closer than last season.

Mr pde while I respect your opinion by implying our current position is due to the lack of support is being at the best disingenuous.

It would be far further if the fact was supported by other figures such as the number of people in the cachment area of the aforesaid clubs. You say support of 3500 is conference level..surely you must be on something ...

As for Houchen, Tait etc I don't remember many crowds over the 2000 yes that 2000, 1500 less than the current figure..when they where around..

Lets face if where pushing for something rather trying to avoid relegation we'd get crowds of 4500 the lack of ambition shown by the club has been rewarded by the lack of bums on seats ..end of..

Answer some of my legitimate questions before resorting to the old time honoured "shit crowds" excuse for the team being shite.

Thats by far the best post of the year so far.

i dont understand one of the original questions.

Mr Point are you suggesting that because we can run our ground very cheap we are at some sort of advantage over teams in this division and the one above?

Need coffee...

Cracking post by Fetish.

precisely!!! Based on crowds therefore we shouldn't beat a single team this season -
Crowds have NOTHING to do with Turner's ineptitude
It is for that reason home crowds are as low as they are!!!! He has been given licence to bring in a lot of players and he's still fucked it up

Average asttendances in the Conference
1 Luton Town 6,925
2 Oxford United 6,100
3 AFC Wimbledon 3,630
4 Mansfield Town 3,450
5 Cambridge United 3,161

My take on the this conspiracy theory (for what it's worth) is that IOR/HUFC don't want to play at a higher level. My reason for that is simple. In the season we came the closest (2004/2005) we got to the play-off final, and eight minutes away. Cue Westwood's sending off and resultant penalty. Allowing the 'big team' to equalise and take us to extra time. That in itself proves nowt . . . . . but I went down to the club shop before going to Cardiff for a home shirt, and got one with the Play-Off commemorative embroidery. However I noticed that the little white badge at the bottom said 'Coca Cola League 1 - 2005/2006'. i.e the club already had in shirts for the following season's league 1 campaign.






I do like a conspiracy theory . . . . .

What do I win



And a second compliment on the same thread, I'm off for a lie down.

are these the stats of a winner?

P213 W54 L99 D60


No

His actual managerial record is

Played 454

Won 143

Drew 117

Lost 194

Win Ratio 31.49%

Draw Ratio 25.77%

Loss Ratio 42.73%

Points played for 1362, points won 546, so his teams have won 40% of the points played for.

The short answer is "He's shite"

my stats were from 2002 after he left us for sheff wed

I think maybe what you all ought to do is make a suicide pact.

Then you wouldn't have to worry about it. You could all go to New York and join the Falung Gong movement, have a mass wedding and then gas yerselves.

What a party that would be

I'd add to that list Hartlepool. Every year spent out of the 'belt it up to the big man' league where almost no football is played is a blessing.

Fans who are twenty or less and can only clearly recall the IOR years I can understand being frustrated at the moment. Anyone over twenty has no excuse.

I spent 16 years watching Pools home and away pre-IOR and pre-Turner.

When you have watched teams so poor that Stephen 'jigsaw' Halliday was what passed for talent and the aroma given off by your argentinian midfielder is the only thing in the game worth discussing then watching a team containing Brown, Boyd, Jones and that petulant big baby Monkhouse is a relative pleasure.

When you remember those dead, appalling years between 95-99 where we were utter garbage. I can barely remember a single game. Turner and IOR changed that utterly. Mad John's nephew is 19 and stands with us at the match. We've spent 10 years since he started coming to the game saying to him 'Make the most of this cos it isn't normally like this'.

I hated Scotty with a passion. It was idiotic to have said what he said about the two play-off seasons being us 'over-achieving'. But everyone knew that he was right - it was just dumb to say it.

We are not the same as Burnley or Oldham to suggest them as a realistic comparison is frankly nuts. If you want to compare clubs of similar stature I suggest you start with Halifax Town and Darlington. Then decide if being an established Third Tier side represents achievement or not.

The only example I am familiar with of any club changing so radically their perception, profile and league position in the last 15 years is Crewe. Their current position seems to indicate that perhaps caution and steady improvement is the way forward.

So again, repeating the mantra, I would say that anyone for whom Hartlepool United being an established third tier side is not acceptable is frankly nuts. And yes I enjoyed that glorious 18 month purple patch under Cooper too. For the best 18 months in the club's 101 year history to then become the bar for what is the minimum acceptable is lunatic.

Brilliant post my earliest memory of Pools is getting hammered 8-1 to Plymouth and I think in the same season beating Birmingham 1-0 when they where running away with the league.

We have been spoilt and I know it, years ago I went to Pools expecting us to get beat but I still enjoyed it, now I just go expecting to get let down by the best squad we have ever had.

So we just have to accept it because we used to be shit pde147?

All the current crop of players does for me is frustrate me, we could do better with the correct leadership, then the attendances would rise.

I don't buy into the "teams have a natural level" rubbish, you're only as good as your current players and management team regardless of the size of your town or the crowds you can attract.

And yes, I can remember us being shit, as a kid I caught the back end of the 80's and had to endure the early/mid 90's slump and the scumbag who nearly put us out of business. We're light years ahead of that now, it's a shame it seems to be going down the toilet due to people accepting we're "little old Hartlepool", staff and players included it seems. I refuse to believe that we've had our fill of relative success and we're settling into the natural order of the football league.

I think PDE's post is interesting. No-one I know seriously thinks we could cut it in the next league up, for very long.
But why couldn't we be much more effective in this league, than we are being? In the periods that PDE mentions, we had a team that played for us and for each other, coupled with some effective managers (which include CT, who was just what the Club needed, first time round.) Why should that be over-achieving? I don't see why things can't 'normally be like that'.

Exactly the man's point.

I too get annoyed and disapointed when the team plays like a one legged blind man, but they're still Pools and I can forgive them after a couple of days, 'cos I remember who we are. I still say we should batter Yeovil, Stockport, Wycombe, because they're comparative places, and when we don't I get as angry as anyone else. But the realism has to seen.

What realism? That we have the capacity to be playing better, but aren't doing?

I couldn't agree with you more. There is absolutely no signs of us returning to our usual position of somewhere near the foot of the bottom division. That's why I would expect a little more praise rather than bile for IOR/Turner.

And as for your resolute refusal to believe in gravity well I can't really help with that. Merely to comment that a goldfish could manage Liverpool/Arsenal/Man Utd or Chelsea to a top four finish (this I think indicates whole level of Benitez achievement in screwing that up). Without an enormous pot of cash Jose Mourinho would not have a prayer of getting, say, Barnet into the Championship. Gravity is strong and, with the ever increasing disparities in revenue between the big and little clubs, getting ever stronger.

agreed and surely IOR should expect more for their money? fair enough give the bloke a chance, but when its so obviously not working then we should have seen some fresh impetus before its possibly too late.

Could not agree more. Why should we accept it? The narking thing is, this current crop of players are on the whole a country mile better than the players we have ever had. Despite the attendences, we should be much higher up the league.

Colchester United are a club of a similar size to us and they've been up to The Championship and seem to want to do it again. Why not us? I'd argue that a good few of our players would more than hold their own in The Championship, yet they can't motivate themselves to put in a shift against Yeovil, Gillingham etc. There's a problem somewhere that's for sure.

The attendences are dropping as the product on offer is simply not attractive to the customers.

I can sort of see what PDE is saying about the bad old days etc but our wage bill is in a different world to what it will have been under Taity, Mcreery et al. For the amount of investment that IOR have put into the club I dont think we are punching above our weight. Yes, attendances have been poor but it hasnt made any apparent difference to the funds CT has been given hence the low crowds isnt really a valid argument for another poor season in my eyes.

I appreciate that IOR deserve credit, true they certainly do but they need to open their eyes and get rid of the useless get in charge. They are supposed to be run as a business but a typical business would not employ incompetent staff purely because they are mates. Unfortunately IOR are so out of touch with the fans that they dont see that keeping someone like Turner in charge is going to have serious repurcusions in terms of gate money.

The club will no doubt put poor gates down to the 'recession' but its the current manager who is most affecting the gates. And yes, some will say that we dont want 'fans' who dont turn up to support the club purely because they dont rate the manager but its a bloody business! You give the customer what they want or you lose customers.

Stephen Halliday was amazing.

It's obvious we have players with genuine skill and flair in the squad, but its also apparent that too many of them are failing to step up to the mark often enough, they only seem to want to bring their 'A' game to the party when it suits them, particularly in away games.

Rectifying that problem then becomes the responsibility of the men in charge. I'm sick of watching certain players of ours being pin-pointed by the oppo' as a danger, then having to overcome double or man-marking, and C.T either doing nowt about it or failing to even spot it. If we have a scouting system how come opposition teams dangermen have been given free-reign to do what they want against us (ie Lallana), with what seems like a complete disregard of effort to nullify.

Incidentally in that game against Southampton, which we led 1-0 in, Lallana was given more room than a London bus, and it was blatantly obvious that a struggling for pace Humps should've been taken off, the pacier Fredriksen or McSweeney put on with the sole instruction to just get in the way, stick a toe in, stand on the bloke, annoy, instead nothing, the bloke then goes on to score 2 goals (although of real quality) totally unpressured, we then lose 3-1. And weve thrown shedloads of points away this season employing the same tacticless approach.

If we have motivational, focus, fitness, tactical and confidence problems within the squad it's up to him and his team to attempt to put it right. At the moment they seem to be spending more time on finding appropriate excuses.

Also I followed Pools home and away 1974-80, when we did struggle in and around the bottom four of Div.4, what the players lacked in skill and flair (which is usually why they ended up at Pools) they more than often made up for in effort. Ironically a complete contrast to the problems we currently have.

Your post makes sense but why after 2 play off season in this division cant fans have hopes and aspirations that we can reach the play offs again and possibly the Championship, its every fans dream to get into a higher division. When we lost to Wednesday in 2005 I was asked what my thoughts would have been if we had won and gone up. My response was at kick off on the first match of the next season I would have said to someone

"We're 46 games from the premiership"

May 2000 Hull City 0 Hartlepool 3, attendance 7260 Hartlepool make play off, Hull finish 14th

March 2010 Yeovil 4 Hartlepool 0, Hull City 1 Arsenal 2

1995/96 season Fulham 2 Hartlepool 2, attendance 3700 Hartlepool 1 Fulham 0.

So don't give up on dreams, expect better because once you accept what you have then what's the point of attending games. Please don't say Hull/ Fulham have bigger catchment area for fans etc etc, they dropped to the bottom division of English football and worked their way up, attracting fans back by moving up the leagues. That's the point I'm trying to make Fulham at home to Hartlepool attendance 3700, our last home game was only 500 below that attendance.

I've watched Pools through the so called bad times, but during those bad times I always hoped, prayed, dreamt that we wouldn't forever be in the bottom 4 of the bottom division or worse.

Why should I accept being mid to lower table in League 1 because "its were a club our size belongs " says F****** who, that's right the plastic fans/ sky tv football fans/ pundits.

Why should I accept a Pools manager giving the opposition there team talk prior to us playing them. That's slightly exaggerated but in a way it's what Turner does every time we play a big club.

I can see it now Leeds players sat in dressing room in walks Grayson, players wait for him to speak, he doesn't the Leeds captain speaks and says "ok gaffer what's the instructions for today against Hartlepool"

Grayson replies "You don't need any skipper their manager is telling everyone including his own players , we're to big for them to compete against just go out there and beat them I'm off home to go shopping with the Mrs see you at training next week"

I don't expect that, and yes I'm being sarcastic but it's almost at that point with this bloke in charge.

All I want is a team competing, a team and management team that want to compete against better teams, to do that you need to win games and promotion. Not a manager who is F*****g accepting 16th-20th in the 3rd tier of English football.

Is that to much to ask..........NO it's not.

It is utterly irrelevant whether fans 'accept' anything. They can do nothing about it.

At a club like Pools (where support is so very poor that even the people who hang out on the supporters forum boast about not attending games) fans don't even have the clout of saying 'we pay the wages'. We pay about 35% of the wages.

I find it wisest, rather than torment myself just to go and support my team - which I know you do too.

As for your second paragraph above I would say that no-one who has ever spoken to him believes that Chris Turner is happy or content with how this season has panned out. Every manager wants to finish top. But the way it works is that there are 23 other teams all trying to finish top too. Sometimes some of those, particularly the ones with playing budgets 4 or 5 times as big as yours get in the way.

That Robert Snodgrass at Leeds is an outstanding player. Pools saw that and tried to sign him. He went to Leeds because it was Leeds and because they offered much more money. This is just how things are. Occasionally you get a Porter (who is massively injury prone but eventually puts a run together and is magnificent) but teams like Pools with no pulling power face an uphill struggle. I think that in Joe Gamble Turner has recruited a player who could go on to be a huge player for us.

I know I'm swimming against the tide here but for me, when your club has played out of the bottom available division only 9 times in 101 years (and three of those were relegations) then staying up for a fourth season for the first time in our history seems a good outcome.

That attendance wasn't setting the world on fire was it.

The point I'm trying to make is simple, a winning team a winning attitude, will attract the fans back. Or when we made successive play offs were we playing in front of 3000.

Once more the answer is NO and why was that, We were winning, we were competing, we had a manager who didn't make his excuses before a ball was kicked.

Ok there are teams in our league that will attract the better players simply because we cant compete in that way.

But I'm damn sure if I was manager they would be going onto the pitch and F*****G competing there and not having me saying well it;'s a "Big club".

Will people including Turner get this so called F*****G big club out of their heads. They in League 1 (division 3 in old money) WHY, simple they weren't good enough to stay in the championship.

2006/07 season Hartlepool promoted to League 1

2006/07 season Leeds relegated to League 1

They so much bigger than us we've been in the same division for 3 seasons as them. And don't give me the 10points deduction bit they still lost in play offs. Yes the 10 points means they go up, but they tried to live the dream and ended up in administration, so it was their own fault. They blew it last season again and they could even blow it this season.

So if we're both in League 1 next season it means we're as good as them when the 2010/11 season kick offs, as we're both not good enough to go UP and not bad enough to go DOWN.

As the irritating meerkat says............. simples.

I can see where you are coming from but I see this attitude as defeatist. It's as if we should be happy to just about survive relegation for the 3rd season in a row.

No-one can tell me that there hasn't been something off in the last 3 seasons. The apathy from the majority of supporters is clear and a fair few won't even go again. Yes it's an achievement to not be in Division 4, but we should not be teetering on the brink of relegation for the past three years when teams of a similar size like Colchester, Scunthorpe, Bristol Rovers and Carlisle (Wembley, play-offs etc) get some form of success. What's their secret?