It seems in between me being in the kitchen listening to the game and eating an Indian takeaway all Hell has broken loose in the Town End, and Mark Simpson said it looked like the game could have even been abandoned.

Does anyone have any idea what went on?

Almost certainly a racist comment, given players who were involved. Nothing excuses that so please do not try.

According to Mark the referee is having a stinker. He gave Dover a penalty which Mark didn't appear to understand. The player Effiong scored and then started goading the town end and was joined by the other Dover players. There was a response from the Town end, allegedly of a racist nature and it all kicked off. Effiong was guilty of inciting the crowd but the ref just ignored it. I'm obviously not there but a lot of upset has ensued.

Excuse me? Any need for that unruly?

Who would defend that if that’s what happened? I’d expect the person involved to have set foot in the Vic for the last time but I suppose we shouldn’t speculate too much without knowing the facts.

The bloke celebrated in front of the fans I'm in the ground I already heard people saying the striker instigated it. It was not aimed at you pj x

No problem.

Yes it’s indefensible whatever goading took place if anyone responded in a racist manner I hope they get the book thrown at them.

I find it hard to believe it was one person personally but wait further news before making comment

The club have read a statement at half time condemning racist behavior so I suppose that confirms it.

Very sad.

If it was individual I hope he is the one punished and not the club I am sure Pools the will deal with him the only way they should and issue a life ban.

Someone chucked a burger at him before that no sign of him being kicked out and we just had a pitch invader trying to get at ref.

Now some bloke has ran on the pitch and tried to get at the referee.

What’s going on, how stupid given the previous incident do you have to be to do that? It sounds like that Gillingham game years ago.

Serious repercussions here now.....

30 years of coming here and never seen a ref like it.

I just hope these idiots get named and shamed. Nobody tries to hide them in the name of some playground childish 'no grassing' rule.

Listening to Mark's commentary it would appear that we have our usual very poor officials in charge of the game.
Something really has to be done about this.
I swerved the game today and I'm missing more and more games and I really can't be arsed any more.
I always said that the one thing that would drive me away would be the standard of refereeing.

Blatant penalty, most blatant penalty ever turned down and sends Donaldson off.

If I was Hignett I'd take the players off. This is ridiculous.

Listening to Mark's commentary it would appear that we have our usual very poor officials in charge of the game.
Something really has to be done about this.
I swerved the game today and I'm missing more and more games and I really can't be arsed any more.
I always said that the one thing that would drive me away would be the standard of refereeing.

He’s started randomly sending people off now!

He's a secret member of the anti-Featherstone society

What was he sent off for it couldn’t have been a tackle!?

Pointing his beard at the ref.

I feel sick. What will our black players think? The ref was ungodly. Hope everyone has a safe trip home because that atmosphere got bad. Didn't even want to stay there

Never seen anything like it.

Erveyone involved today has previous experience of this league and its standards. So there is no excuse for the embarrassing behaviour of fans, players or management. Maximum fines for those dismissed and lifetime bans and prosecution for those found guilty of racist behaviour. Let the chairman down badly.
F

Well that is me done. I'll go on Tuesday because I've promised to but I will never enter the Vic again after that.
I have to take that decision to protect my well being because I am just getting wound up too much.
Those officials and players today will get away scot free for their contribution to crowd incitement and the unfortunate racism by individuals who were unable to control themselves. Those people will regret their behaviour, I hope, but will pay the penalty.
Likewise the guy who invaded the pitch will be dealt with severely and the club will do well to remain unscathed.
I don't condone any of this behaviour but I do think that people's patience and control may have been stretched to the limit today and I'm glad that I wasn't there. It is easy to criticise but...........
After all seasoned professionals like Donaldson and Featherstone, not to mention Hignett, lost control today and they are only employees of the club. The fans are something else.

No matter how bad the ref performed, Pools will clearly come out of this looking worse than shit.

3 reds, a racist incident and an idiot on the pitch will be all anyone else sees.

What gets me is not only do we have black players and fans from all kind of backgrounds but our owner is Indian. I'm sure he's wondering what he's invested in tonight.

You can not play a game of football with that level of incompedence of refereering.
We got 2 players and a manager sent of for questioning his incompedence tells you exactly what happened today.
Never seen anything as bad as that from an official.

You can never justify the racist incident today. It’s appalling and I hope we ban the individual involved. Must be said though that I heard other instances behind at the top of the stand so he certainly wasn’t alone. It’s horrific, I wanted to leave.

The referee was also ridiculous in a way that I can’t put into words. Astoundingly bad. Never seen a referee lose control of a game quite like that. The fact that our players and manager were being applauded for being sent off for dissent tells you everything about the newly reached levels of incompetency of that referee.

I’ve never seen a game turn that nasty and angry and I hope I never do again.

I think a lot of people were blaming the ref and Effiong for inciting the crowd. Effiong 100% acted like a dickhead and incited it, the referee did absolutely nothing to stop it.

However, let me be clear, I am in no way condoning racist abuse. No matter what the circumstances that led to it it is out of order and there is no place in society for it.

Whatever happened to just calling a dickhead a dickhead. There’s never a need for racism.

It wasn`t managed well at all, stewards running around like chickens with no heads, the guy who walked on had a young person in an orange jacket following them but not challenging them, it was laughable!

I have to say as soon as I saw who it was in charge I feared the worst but nothing like that, it was bordering on gross incompetence, I actually felt sorry for him at one point(soon passed) and I never leave a game early but left 12 minutes from the end, couldn`t stomach anymore of that.


The idiots who made the noises want banning and I must say there didn`t seem much urgency to get them out

Agreed, the people trying to find a flimsy justification for the racist comments are just as bad, people walking out saying things like 'well if he hadn't cupped his ear it wouldn't of happened' is the most brain dead stupid thing I think I've ever heard, if you wanna give him grief do it, call him a wanker, fat fucker whatever, you overstep the line when you bring race into it, we have some proper divvy thick as fuck fans following us.

One of the worst games I’ve been to in almost 60 years. There is a small hooligan element invading our games even in the boxes. I shall be visiting the club on Monday morning to report the behaviour and language of people standing behind where my wife and I sit in the Cyril Knowles. Although not racist, the language being shouted just behind us was absolutely not acceptable, every 4 letter word you can imagine was used. I have heard all this before being an ex contractor but my wife hasn’t and is not used to it, she was quite upset to say the least. There were other women and children sitting in the same area. Granted you might hear the odd word but today there was a big crowd of lads leaning over and shouting putrid poison. They should limit the drink served in the boxes. Rant over

It now appears one of our fans has had a pop at Gus Mafuta on twitter.

What a fucking mess we are.

https://twitter.com/APMafuta/status/1175456874159890432

This is one of the darkest days in our history. It's the most embarrassing as well.

jamiehall97's post and account seem to have vanished fairly quickly!

With a name and year like that shouldn't be to hard to track him down.

Apparently he's a man u fan????

Definitely from Hartlepool then

jamiehall97 was frustrated in the way Gus Mafuta ripped off his shirt and ran down the tunnel.

Imagine being that thick.

https://twitter.com/APMafuta/status/1175464519235186688

And another one.

Oi, You! anyone who doesn't understand (although I'm sure everyone on this board is on the same page). Today's issue is racism. That's the problem, by speaking about the TRIVIAL issue of people taking their shirt off is deflecting the serious issue of HUMAN BEINGS receiving racist abuse.

I really don't give a fuck whether Gus took his shirt off or not (he could have wiped his arse with it for all I care - and he had every right to the way he was treated), I care that Dover and Hartlepool players were racially abused and I'm furious.

Will the culprit be identifiable does anyone think. Abuse wise not the ref.

He stands in the same spot in the Town End every home game, should be easy for them to identify.

Hopefully he’ll never stand there again.

And people always say, it's just one fan, it's just a mindless idiot.

But it is more than one fan. There was more than one fan today.

Up and down the country, there's this dangerous rise of far right nationalism.

As our country suffers greater and greater disparities of wealth and poverty, there are people in our country afraid, struggling to survive, some feel ashamed to be suffering poverty, some are desperate - and most of all people are frustrated.

Our jobs are being taken away, people feel exploited. People blame immigration, the finger is pointed to someone because of the colour of their skin, when the real cause of poverty and suffering has nothing to do with black people, Asian people, immigrants or whatever. Immigrants do not hold the power, in fact they have less power. It is the system that is broken.

As the richer get richer, and the poor suffer, the real issues are deflected onto immigrants and this breeds racism and hate. This is the same hate that many of our grandparents fought against in World War 2.

Hartlepool is a town suffering from poverty, high unemployment but an immigrant, black person or anyone else who isn't white hasn't caused any of these problems. And yes, it's a minority of people, but it's a minority that's too much.

This is a bigger issue that needs to be tackled head on and Hartlepool United needs to come down hard on these bigots and racists and do their bit. I'm sure the club will. I feel sorry for Mark Simpson, Raj Singh who will have to work hard to repair the damage that today has caused.

Could the reaction of a group of our own alleged ‘supporters’ have caused more damage to the fabric of our team and club?
We are going to be the biggest losers in all of this I fear.

I agree with Mute Witness I think it’s been touched on recently on here, I think all this Brexit shite has seen a regression and return of this sort of behavior.

I don't do Twatter, but can everyone who has an account please get on there and support Gus and any other player being targeted?

I don't think Brexit itself is to blame, it's the press whipping people up into a frenzy about immigration, distorting facts and spreading hate. Look at the treatment Sterling had at the hands of The S*n.

The CEO allows a Football Lads Alliance flag to be displayed in the ground so he can hardly be shocked by what happened today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_Lads_Alliance

Mafuta and Kioso went over to try and defuse the situation and whatever was said to Gus it was clear he had to be persuaded to carry on playing after the 10 minute stoppage and his heart clearly wasn't in it second half. It also most definitely wasn't just one fan involved either and the stewards were useless. The lad abusing Gus was actually dragged away by one of his mates.