As far as anti-IOR feeling is concerned, I have to admit I was pretty much still in the wait-and-see camp when Paul Murray was appointed. Then when the TMH deal was first announced, my inital response was to feel a bit chuffed, so I guess I must have seen enough of IOR by then.

At what moment did you truly consider them beyond redemption?

Edit: You might want to consider "When Oldham beat us" as encapsulating that relegation season and "When John Hughes got the bullet" as IOR's outright sign of unwillingness to throw their support behind a manager.

John hughes for me

Me too

I was very unhappy too with the way they supported John Hughes, but his sacking was tempered by the final dissolution of the bessie mates circle.

I thought John Hughes was the right man especially after his comments after the televised match v Brentford about needing 6 or 7 new players.
Obviously this was too much for the owners who sacked him soon after.
I think everyone knows that the club has been run into the ground by IOR over the last few years and this is why we find ourselves in the position we do today.
I am pleased that we have Ronnie Moore in charge of team affairs, although I think he has again been limited to what he can and can't do.
I have the hope that we can escape relegation but as supporters we must ensure we are never in this position again. I said the same thing last year after we beat Morecamble but the owners have let the fans down.
I hope that whatever happens this season, we have new owners in the summer, who will embrace the fans, keep Ronnie Moore and plan for a return to the Football League or mount a serious play off challenge to League One.

In the meantime, we must get behind Ronnie and the team and fight for our survival.....IOR can be sorted later!

I remember being pissed off the promotion season under Danny Wilson when we could have invested a little and won the div 2 title and didn't do either.

I think the season or the season after the cheap season were introduced, the first year I attended just a handful of games as it was obvious the investment, quality of football or ability to win games wasn't there.
I bought a season ticket the year after and it was more apparent what was going on, I think I attended even less games that year and have only given minimal investment through the gate since.

Can you add the option: 'When the James transfer farrago proved that the Baldwin transfer farce wasn't an accident'.

I'd defended IOR as owners, even when they made bad decisions, up until then because over the years they had convinced me that they were serious about running the club in a sensible manner. After that I became convinced that there must be something a little iffy going on. Possibly the sort of thing you might get at a club where the parent company lend the club money that then disappears in large admin charges that turn out to have been paid to the parent company and/or its employees. Possibly not though.

The Blyth game brought it all home for me, sadly.

The last ten games of last season sent out major alarm bells about our league status. The squad then only got weaker in August. Selling James at the last minute leaving us relying on the firepower of Harewood, players retiring from football to turn up playing elsewhere, umpteen right backs and the same tired excuses from Cooper.

If we do pull off the great escape it will just be a stay of execution unless Ken and Russ are chased out of town.

6 or 7 years ago I predicted this

Fair point. Obviously that's much more significant than things like Higgy leaving.

This has been winding down for four or five years........which is when after going to Pools since my school days, I started to become disillusioned as the club seemed to be on autopilot.
I've been there when times were really bad and I mean bad, but these last few years have been a slow run down, a sort of dull indifference without any hope.... prisoners so to speak of our situation but unable to change things.

Was Luke Williams a defensive midfielder then too?

Nooo thats when we had that shit right back Joel Porter.