We turned up resigned to the game ending in tears. The die was cast, we were rubbish and the prospective champions were coming to put us out of our misery. I'll admit I only turned up out of curiosity long resigned to the inevitable, I was comfortable and had adapted to our relegation a couple of weeks earlier.
Then we go and play football in a way I hadn't seen for a long time and the impossible nearly became the possible. I expected surrender yet they fought and won. Oddly enough I found this annoying, it wasn't possible, the script was written. The end was as expected though, but I wondered where that evenings group of battling players had been for most of the season, that did hurt.

I feel robbed of someone to vent my anger on. First Jones and then Coxall sloped away then the players did just enough to avoid being pilloried on Saturday.

It sounds daft but I'm not sure the players really deserved getting a hammering, I think that came against Barnet anyway which was the worst performance I have ever seen from a Pools team to fair but I didn't see any fancy dans or overpaid show ponies not putting in a shift. They tried but you need some help at times, we were left with an inexperienced team full of square pegs in round holes. Then we had the Jones disaster on top of that who seemed to completely fracture the whole club. At the end of the day it's the players livelihoods, where do they go from here a lot of them?

I said before the match that we'll go down but it won't be straightforward at some point we will be put through the mill and given some hope because it's Pools, I think that would be a fair description of how things panned out!

Point is, I expected the usual poor show and lack of bottle and we get beat. That would have put and end to it, but they turned up, put in a shift and pissed me off actually. Even if Newport had drawn and we survived, surely people wouldn't have been so dumb as to heap legends status on them. They were a major part of the reason we ended up there in the first place. Bit like setting fire to your house and then being hailed as an hero for putting the fire out.
All the 'villains' had left the stage and the team covered their own backs.
We even ended up cheated of a target for our pain and for someone to vent our helpless frustration at. A fitting end actually

they spent half the season being told they were no good by mr.jones apparently

The one outcome I didn't forecast was that we would do our bit...

I accepted that we were down after the Orient game, had a few weeks to think about it and surprised myself by not feeling too bad on Saturday night - Pools in the League was a cat with at least 18 lives, 14 of them successful re-election applications, and our luck finally ran out this season.

As for the game, I couldn't quite believe that we were going to do it again even when we were in front; there was part of me waiting for Newport to score and unfortunately they obliged.

But the match was fantastic! Not ever going to knock it, because the atmosphere was fantastic, the noise 6,000 Poolies made was unbelievable and we KNOW we made the difference, we really were the 12th man, fuck it, we were the first name on the team sheet!

Even if Pools had won and stayed up the Bunker would still be calling for Coxall's head, we'd still know the squad is nowhere near good enough and we'd still want a clear out of major proportions. The team hasn't been good enough, simple as that. It needed strengthening in the January transfer window but by then Coxall had already decided to gamble on the club's League future by conducting a fire sale of players.

Adding a manager and 2 coaches to the wage bill who failed utterly to come up to expectations completed the disaster. And given that Coxall knows fuck all about football, I'd still love to know whose brain wave that was. Any idea Pam?

The whole "Jones Thing" (and his merry men) was completely Pam Duxbury, for certain.

There you go. I'm already sick of reading 'new broom' type stuff about her. She's 100% implicated in the club's demise and needs to be out the door as soon as possible after Coxall.

There were too many connections prior to him landing here. Only my opinion of course but it's pretty black and white.

Should it, on paper anyway, have been the worst idea and the utter disaster it turned out to be?

I was fairly excited by his appointment and didn't see too many negative comments at the time. Hindsight was a wonderful thing when things startled to unravel. On the paper his cv was excellent as were the reputations of Cooper and Armstrong.

Maybe if all three had came in at the end of a season things might have been different, but like I said yesterday the form during Hignetts last 15 was nearly as awful (12 points from 15 games). The squad was decimated by January sales and injuries to Carson, Magnay and Paynter. Anyone even Collins after his initial decent result would have struggled, maybe we would have got more from those key Morcambe, Orient and Barnet games we'll never know?

In my humble view we should treat the current regime with caution. Goldberg left last October so using their own statements they have been involved since then and by definition Duxbury so ignore this January shite.

Frankly I have no reason to trust them any more than Coxall, the difference is that they have someone's to blame whereas Coxall didn't.

Don't get taken in a second time.

Fans should have more reason to be cautious after so many people (including myself) believed Mr Bullshit when he first came on to the scene.

I am don't worry about that I was just talking about the appointment of Jones in isolation, and that I didn't see too many saying it was potentially disastrous at the time.

I don't think I was taken in the first place I didn't like the sound or look of Coxall and JNPG from day one, I never thought it would end well (I said it numerous times on here) and was certainly never on Twitter blowing smoke of his arse.

I was on Twitter on Sunday like asking if he'll be Tweeting today then calling him a gutless worm.

He's not going to post on Twitter again is he? Or be ever seen near the Town again?

I think there was plenty of disquiet straight after the transfer window closed when folk realised that players had been sold and replaced by a management team.

Of course, there was Coxall's horse manure about a target list of players who were free agents, but then Jones and co shipped out a few more experienced players on loan (probably more cost cutting) and Pools were left with a bad side that virtually picked itself. Jones's complacency about the whole situation beggars belief - did he actually give a toss?

You could always comment on his LinkedIn posts, let anyone potentially connecting with him get the picture...

You might damage his recruitment business that doesn't exist.

As he is still co-owner of the Club, I would imagine he will be...

The Doncaster match proved the squad had good games in them. Not every game of course, but enough to at least break even on points/games (that's the equivalent of 46 a season right, bottom two form; it's not asking the fucking earth).
If a manager totally fails to harness that ability, he's shite.

The bloke is what Eddie Kyle called him on the radio last night a coward, he turned up at the Barnet game with a bodyguard then resigned as chairman so he could swerve Doncaster. He wouldn't have the balls to be seen in Hartlepool again.

He knows his games up alls that is left is what he can screw out of the club to fuck off. He didn't have the balls to meet people face to face before so he's certainly not going to now.