Oh, and one more thing.

This constant need for some to continually piss on our own chips is like a f-ucking diease in Hartlepool.

And that ladies and gentlemen is another fact.

Opinion's Mr Creosote, we all have them and we are all entitled to them.

yep - and I've had enough of other fans who DO look down their noses at us, and let's face it, that's 99% of them. I take offence at that, and at them, so fuck 'em

aye PTBPT XYZ. But why do some feel the need to always find something about pools to twist about?

For gods sake we have the best deal in the world ever, so now we moan about away prices.

You really couldnt make this shit up.

You call it moaning, I'd call it discussing. That's what message boards are all about.

no its moaning. Its having a little dig at our club, because we can.

Internet message boards create the stage to allow people to moan and twist about everything.

Even if you really believed Pools were wrong here shouldnt you really keep quiet, as its not that important an issue, and as the pools world is curently made of cheese, why would any poolie feel the need to disrupt that?

I'll tell you why.................because its the Hartlepool way. We just must piss on our cheese.

Hope you don't run a cafe, during this thread you've pissed on your chips and cheese.........

No, not at all. Freedom of speech and all that.

I am allowed to think that charging £25 for away fans is wrong in my opinion. I respect the clubs decision and understand why they've done it. But I'm not for one minute going to nod my head and run along home like some sort of cult follower.

Message boards would die a death if everybody agreed on everything and opinions weren't offered on subjects.

I know. Its a bugger. God help me, or anyone else, if I ever piss on my kebab.

I was making a general point about prices for football being too high, I pointed out that that probably informed IOR's thinking on the season ticket offer. It certainly seemed to be on Russ Green's mind judging by that article in The Echo the other day.

It isn't having a go at IOR or twisting to say that, given the enthusiastic response from fans of other clubs to the offer, the high away prices are a bit of a shame.

The fact that Pools are being held up as an example of a club that cares about fans and understands that good business doesn't mean treating the public like mugs makes me extremely proud. I'd be even prouder if we were showing a similar level of consideration to supporters of other clubs. Obviously, the club couldn't offer season ticket holder prices to visitors but it could make them welcome by charging the average amount for the division.

Finally, anything I'm saying has got nothing to do with people in Hartlepool liking a whinge. I'm just thinking about things from the point of view of a general fan of football as well as being a fan of Pools. I live near Toulouse and I can go and watch Ligue 1 football in a World Cup standard stadium for 12 euros a match and 20 euros for the big matches so it certainly isn't impossible to run a club on reasonable prices, the trickle down from the Premiershit seems to have made lots of English fans blind to that fact.

Its £25 for a seat at Pools for the home fans, and we dont seem to be complaining.

The away fans get charged the same. Its in the rules.

FACT. END OF. ETC ETC.

Is Ligue 1 standard the same as our league 1 or more Darlo stylee

You had to go and mention darlo didnt you. This thread will get locked now.

Not so much a mention as an example of standard!

I see my boy did well again last night

An example of standard?

Oh sod it. I am going to get this thread closed.

Darlo beat Middlesbrough..................meaning they are bound to get promoted and borer are shite.

Now Darlo get beat off Sheffield Uni sorry wedn...ooops FC.

And guess what? Ah, its only friendly so nothing to worry about.

Its the French equivalent of the Premier League. Most teams have a few internationals playing, usually a mixture of French, African, South American and East European. Standard of the better teams is about middle of the Premier League and when a club does very well, like Lille last year, their best two or three players usually move on. I pay what works out to be a tenner except when Toulouse play one of the 'big' clubs like Paris, Marseille or Lyon, then it goes up to about £18. Thats for a seat with a decent view on the virage which is the equivalent of a home end.

Do they do foot longs?

you are all mssing the facts here.

Its £25 to sit in the home end.

Its the same in the away end.

They are not being charged more.

How many more facts do you all need.

[quote="monkeybutt"


Do they do foot longs?[/quote]

Sadly no, I have to take my own foot long.

Great spicy sausages called merguez though, you get three in half a baguette with chips on top. For the first few months of the season you can do your own barbie on the river bank next to the stadium- can't imagine the plod in England allowing lots of small fires near football grounds. The beer is shit mind and they only sell pints at rugby matches so the queues for beer are massive.

Those are undoubtedly facts but you are missing the big facts Mr Creosote-

Big Fact 1: For a lot of people £25 is too much for a third division football match.

Big Fact 2: Lots of people are football fans who think much like Pools fans do but they happen to support other clubs. This is sad for them and usually caused by an unfortunate accident of birth but, this stroke of bad luck aside, we really do have a lot in common with them.

Big Fact 3: Player's wage inflation caused by clubs living beyond their means in order to chase the Premier League gravy train means that English clubs as far down as the conference have to over charge just to keep a squad of mediocre players going.

Not exactly a fact but a point worth making: Most fans of other clubs that I meet quite like Pools. We're still in a real ground near the town centre and the fact we've kept at it for years despite little success has won us a lot of respect. Lots of people see us as a proper club with proper fans at atime when more and more clubs are becoming Premier League copies.

I agree with all of that. But its still £25 to get in the home emd seats, so why should visiting fans be cheaper.

And its helping to pay for our £100 season tickets, which is nice, is it not?

Unless you would rather we didnt have that. In whch case we wouldnt have the levels of excitement that have, but as long as visiting fans are happy?

For once I agree with the fat man.

piss off. You always agree with me, or you just accept you were wrong to start with.

I don't think the amount generated by away fans was a make or break part of the plan so it isn't either or. I'd favour IOR putting the spotlight on the over-chargers by making thier fans pay whatever we have to pay in the game at their ground. Same price could be applied to pay on the day home fans. We could even put a sign up explaining this and that way visitors could have a go at their own club and we would maintain our lofty position as the club with the finest owners in the football league.

Wouldn't do IOR's profile around the country any harm either.

But we have the smallest ground in league one, or one of the smallest. We need to generate as much income as possible.

Its OK for teams like Sheff wed to do it, they can accomodate thousands of visiting fans, we cant.

Your plan, though very sensible, would just keep us down as the also rans. We have been fleeced for years. Its payback time.

in the games when we fill the away end, that extra 6 or 7 quid will net us 6 or 7 grand. Vital money to us. Times that 6 games which is reasonable, then we are talking near 50k.

IOR have been funding us to the tune of 300 to 500,000 a season and they knew that getting crowds up to 3 or 4 thousand by increasing season ticket sales and the subsequent extra revenues would pretty much cover the losses caused by the cut in season ticket prices. Nearly every club that will bring big numbers is charging £20 or more so the extra loss wouldn't be much, certainly not enough to change our fortunes on the pitch.

You're right about it being time to stop being also rans but I think the supporter focussed forward thinking that the club has shown this summer will be the key to that, not getting a couple of quid extra out of our visitors.

And you are purposely missing out the loophole that is being exploited here. There will be no, that's ZERO Hartlepool United fans paying £25 for a seat next season, because there are all already sold to season ticket holders.

If we hadn't of sold all of the seating that home fans occupy already, do you think the club would have put the prices of seating up to £25?

Point 1.

Oh yeh.

Point 2.

That just reads as a veiled dig at IOR. And why oh why would anyone find any need at all at this precise moment to question IOR.

I'm going to keep this baby going until somebody locks it...or Mr Creosote begs for mercy.

If that price is right, I'm glad I'm not a Sheffield United fan, they rip their own fans off and let away fans in cheap.

Forgive the copy and paste, from their official site and dated June 22

Season tickets are now on general sale for £369 (£259 for concessions) for a seat in the Kennedy's Kop, and £479 (£299 concessions) for the John Street family enclosure and the GAC South Stand. Juniors (Under 16s) will pay £79 on the Kennedys Kop and £89 in all other home areas of the stadium.

Now if we take the £369 (cheapest) as price for adult that works out at £16:04p which is £3:04p more than they going to charge us. It be cheaper for a Sheffield United fan to buy 23 tickets for the away end 23x £13 is £299 or a saving of £70.

They state can save £65 so if we now use the most expensive seat of £479 and the saving of £65 you get £544 divide that by 23 you get £23:65 so I'll have guess and say it be closer to £23 /£24 for away fans than £13 I hope I'm wrong but wouldn't think so.

No way will it only be £13 to get in at Bramall Lane next season. hth.

Jesus wept, quit with the accusations of me having a dig at IOR. Uncle Ken is the single best thing that has happened to this football club in the entire time I've supported it. I'm not having a dig, I'm DISCUSSING on a message board thread.

If I ever get the chance to met him I'll shake his hand and thank him for all the work he's done over the past 10+ years, he should be given the freedom of Hartlepool, although that would require recognition from the council, that'll never happen.

Just ignore him ptbap, another of his boring windups.

It was a masterstroke raising the imaginary home prices to £25 IMO.

I don't mind paying £25 to see 'Pools play.

Mr Creosote, this thread isn't a moan. It's a discussion. That's what message boards are good at. (at this point you might type FACT in capital letters). You have completely missed the point of the whole thread and your selfish attitude towards ticket prices will only hurt Pools away fans (do you ever go away?) in the long run.

What HUFC has done this season with season ticket prices has been fantastic and I for one can't believe how successful it has been. Hats off to HUFC for that.

However just sitting back and being 'happy clappy' is a pathetic attitude. For evil to triuph it just takes good men to sit back and do nothing.

I believe that £25 is a reasonable price to pay, they can say at the end of the season, we will miss going to Victoria park and they deserve promotion

How come people on a limited income, who moan about the price of entry, still manage to pay for 8 pints and 40 tabs on their away days

I totally concur with you.

For years we, as HUFC fans, have "sat back" and taken the crap dished up to us in terms of away ticket pricing and being shoved into pokey areas of opposition grounds, "sat back" and accepted being herded around by mounted police and treated like muck. And HUFC have sat back and done nowt about it by giving away fans a prime spot in our ground and charging away fans less than we have been getting charged in return when we go away.

Now HUFC are doing price wise what others have done to us for years, so sorry, some of us with longer memories or who have been narked by how we've been treated as away fans following HUFC have absolutely no sympathy for fans of other clubs who are upset at getting the treatment we've had for years.

Can't open that through work, but will have a read if you copy and paste...

That is excellent, well done

I wouldnt pay £2 to watch patrick hadyermam

When is all said and done who honestly gives a crap about how much away fans pay to get into the Vic, its not you paying it.

Oh DO give over. Please do.

Where you have been the last 10 years or so, when we, as the little boys in League one, get completeky done over, time after time. Ah yes, nowhere to be seen.

We will survive your doomsday scenario, in the same way we have survived all of the other shit the FA, football league, and Big clubs have done this past 100 years.

And to describe our ticketing pricing as evil just beggers belief.

Dont look in your wardrobe at night, the cupboard monsters will get you.

Just to put some actual fact onto this. I do believe pools announced the new match day seat prices long before the seats were sold out.

I average much more than one away game a season.

Leeds charged £28 a couple of years ago.

Apart from the fact that we're NOT charging £28, inflation is currently running at c5% pa but Pools hadn't increased their prices for about 3 years, a period which also included a VAT rise which wasn't immediately passed on to supporters.

I hate all this bollocks about "how many away games do you go to a season" to be honest me going to a home game a season is further than a lot of you travel to away games. Granted I will get in for under a fiver but me going to say 7-8 home games a season is more money than anyone going from Hartlepool to say 3-4 away games.

you might be talking about away games. I am not.

I am talking about charges to get into the Vic. The only ground I care about.

We charge £25 to sit. Home fans and away.

IOR I salute you.

I'll take that as a 'no I don't go to away games' then. As I thought.