On Sunday I ran the great north run on behalf of the Finlay cooper fund. In the company of Colin cooper and h'angus among others.
I travelled on a coach with about 30 others including the pools boss. I sat right next to Colin the whole journey to Newcastle and spoke to him(and listened to him speak to other passengers) in great length about pools. A few stand out factors were;

Firstly,Colin coopers seems like a very genuine,nice bloke.level headed and absolutely fanatical about coaching. He seems determined to do well and turn things around a pools.

Secondly,we got on the subject of Luke James and Andy Monkhouse. Monkhouse had a chat with Colin when he took over as boss and asked him if he'd consider using him as a striker as opposed to a winger(first half against Accrington and whole Bradford game suggest he can get some success there). Luke James the boss feels is a massive talent but needs to be coached so he can learn when and when not to chase the ball around as he's burning himself out in games chasing lost causes.they are working on using his energy and directness in the right areas of the pitch where he can cause the most damage to the opposition(Joel porter was different class in that department)

And finally,Curtis main was on the radar but pools either couldn't afford or weren't prepared to pay his wages. I assume boro wanted his wages paying in full by the club. Colin seemed to suggest however that either Sunderland or Newcastle may be open to loaning us a player in the next international break which I think is in a couple of weeks.

?

That was the couch we used complete with massage table!

I was going to post a similar message, as I was on the bus and also with CC before the race until we set off. I was going to post what a nice bloke he was, and he had his picture took with many Pools fans before the race and had time to chat about the club and also his charity etc..

The link with the Boro is something he wants to keep going and also wants to extend to The Geordies and Mackems but I don't they that bothered. Probably because we are in League 2, and Prem clubs like their fringe players to go to Championship or League 1 at the least.

I won't quote what he said about a well paid striker at the club but I reckon most board members would concur with his thoughts...

Anyway, well done for completing the GNR.. same again next year?

Oh you big tease..

Yeah ill do it next year. I got round in 1 hour 58 mins which isn't a bad time for my first attempt. What did time did you manage??

Did anyone else see Symthe getting interviewed after the race?

I reckon Monky is actually a very good striker when he is giving 100%. We certainly have looked far better with him up front than anyone else.

Im a bit concerned with Luke James like, I don't think he has done very well at all. I appreciate he is young and if anyone can get him to progress then Im sure it is CC.

I would much rather have Poole up front. Poole and Monky could be a good pairing.

The missus and I did it in 2 hrs 35 mins which aint bad for an old fat lad. I was fucked at 12 miles it must be said but still quicker than Stevie Howard!

the OP has just reinforced my opinions of Cooper. You know he is prepared to do things for the long term at Pools by the way he is attempting to change the style of play. Clearly he is confident in hiimself and his players to be able to execute this plan.

He has my total backing, he deserves at least a 2 or 3 years in the job. I believe he will get us putting points on the board soon enough

Agreed, the talk of him getting the boot last week was pathetic.

This with Bells on. The arse who posted that needs to look at Colin's story and his fight for his son's memory, then come back with the load of shite that nobody agreed with on here anyway. Then, after a long, hard look in a mirror, he should hang his miserable head in shame.

No more to say than that.

Yep. What was the word Simpson is supposed to have used about the tone of the Bunker in the panel discussion? Emotive? Hysterical would be closer to the mark for some people.

The Mail is pointing out today that Danny Wilson only got 2 points from his first 6 games in our last promotion season. Not suggesting that Pools are going to walk the division this time, mid-table looks like a good shout, but Cooper is shaking things up in a positive way and gives every impression of being a man with a plan. I'd love to see Pools go on an unbeaten run, some of our young players would be different class in this League if they were playing with their tails up.

agree with that MDKMF I think Cooper has an air of calm confidence and a vision for the team and how they should play

The last few managers wouldn't take the game to opponents even at home, dating back to Turner.... slowly but surely we are starting to look like a team that tries to play the game as it should be

Good things take time rebuild means rebuild not overnight give people some slack and he maybe a god someday for us

And there were people back then calling for him to be sacked too.

Not as ridiculous as suggesting that IOR should bugger off, like. I like the cut of the bloke's jib, I think he'll do well unless he gets snapped up.

Dibble

Mail in being wrong shocker.

We had 5 points after 6 games, 2 after 5.

But the start wasn't too dissimilar in some ways in that we struggled to score.

It's a fact of social media that the more extreme an opinion the more attention it gets, nuance sadly has no place, look at twitter you only ave 140 or whatever letters to make your point

Unfortunately our team is much weaker now than the team Wilson inherited in 2006.

We had porter n Williams who could lead a line, John daly who compared to howard is a speed demon.

Wilson was allowed to strengthen during the season with monkhouse n Duffy which helped give us a boost. He was then given what seems like a million pound compared to the money we have now to bring barker in.

We're dealing with different figures now n I don't think we'll have the players to mount any type of challenge or run we did back then.

Shame like.


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Me and Parmo were saying along the same lines on Saturday and that sadly it seems we'll never see times like that again where we competed in the Transfer Market....those days are long gone and we'll probably never see the likes again!!!!

I'm not overly worried about that. We have bought some good players over the years- Emmerson, Saville and Dalton spring to mind but a lot of our best players have been free. If we had any two from Rob MacKinnon, Brian Honour, Adam Boyd, Joel Porter, Gordon Watson and Tommy Miller playing we'd be a lot better than we are now.

I think wages are more important than transfer fees in the lower divisions now- you get plenty of good players being let go for financial reasons and end of contracts but getting them to come to Pools probably isn't always simple or cheap. Another good reason to be bringing through talent from our region while Sunderland and Newcastle run round Europe with their shopping trolleys.

players wages will HAVE to come down in future.. there's only a year or two of it left for them earning four figures per week kicking a ball around in league 2

This FFP will see to that... they'll have to drop their demands or else they won't get a club

Player: "I want 2 grand a week plus appearance fees plus win bonus blah blah blah bells and whistles etc etc"

Divisin 4 club: "Daft 'lovely lovely person'... take what we offer or go on the dole"

Player: "Errr.. ok I'll sign for Man United then"

Division 4 club : "Crack on then kidder"

Agreed, and clubs will be keen to offer shorter contracts to avoid being lumbered with immobile or trumpeting mistakes. End result will be that players got to clubs that can offer them the best wages and transfer fees won't matter as much.

To keep my Tripledecker style prediction going I reckon that in the lower divisions these clubs will be the ones that diversify a bit and make cash from more than obvious football money- like IOR are planning to do if they get the ground. They could do it with a long term lease but I think they might want the ground as security for the investment needed to give the club a bigger turnover that fits with FFP rules. Ken Hodcroft whinges about FFP a lot but I think he has spotted an opportunity to make Pools a stronger force without just chucking IOR money in and he is frustrated that teh ownership issue is frustrating his plan.

It's not just wages though, lifestyle has to play some part in it.

If you took a player at 21 offered a contract on exactly the same terms by Bury (meaning you can live in Manchester), Wimbledon (So you can live in that London) or by Pools, then even ignoring league position and the fact uprooting a young family must be hard, I'm not sure lads from the south of the country would fancy coming here. It limits your potential pot of players unless you can add incentives to come or can pluck players like Duckworth & Baldwin for whom any step up to league level was a good offer.

True Mr Life. Might work both ways though. For players with young families you can choose from loads of houses all over the North East and North Yorkshire that are way nicer, and in nicer places, than anything you can afford in Manchester or London. If they haven't got kids and like a bit of clubbing and so on then the south east and the bigger cities would be better. Who wants to sign those nitrous oxide sniffing fools though?

Honestly will you stop it with this.

You do realise that some on here actually believe it.

There are about 1400 registers users on here, and the last time I checked I am no more than 800 of them now.

So behave.