All the time I’ve went to Pools I’ve never been more than 10 feet from some semi literate fuckwit making a racist comment, it was there a long time before Brexit was thought of. Face up to it and stop hiding behind Brexit, racism is ingrained in some people and always has been.

He made his way back to where he stood, Gus then chased him down telling him to 'get the fuck out' several times and the bloke headed out towards Clarence Road exit still ranting on, dunno if the Police or Stewards collared him on the way out like?

Some serious level scruffs follow Hartlepool united. But when you look at the town, who’s surprised?

Its a fuckin dark day for this club, and whatsworse is the people digging out our players for standing against this, and daring to get fuckin pissed off at racist abuse.

This has been coming for a while too.

I can’t think of a dumber way to wreck your team and season than by what happened today.

I think Hartlepool United might have one trophy in the cabinet. A trophy for the lowest average IQ across its supporters than any other football club operating in English football. Real talk.

Possibly wrong to associate it with Brexit but it’s part of the culture around it, immigration getting our country back etc, this sort of thing is on the rise around the country and across society. Plenty of high profile examples this season and last in the Premier League after years without such incidents.

That’s not trying to duck any issue around Pools specifically but I reckon I have heard one comment in about 15 years I obviously haven’t been much in the last couple of seasons but my part of the ground must be different to yours!

Thankfully I gave the game a miss today and went to the seaside with our lass for a last-of-the-summer day out.

Just watched the lowlights on BT. It's a definite penalty - Aaron Cunningham cleans out Effiong with a mistimed tackle.

Effiong and another Dover player celebrate in front of the Town End (Michael Woods starts to join them but thinks better of it), then there's an edit to words and gesticulations being exchanged between some players and at least half a dozen Pools fans who've come down to the hoardings.

BT also showed the Toure incident - another definite penalty, tackled from behind inside the box.

All very depressing. About 5 years ago I called out a guy on the Millhouse who was prone to targeting an opposition black player for persistent racial abuse in pretty much every game - and got slagged off by a couple of fellow posters for drawing attention to his behaviour. The same thing happened when I had the temerity to point out on here how weird it was that Pools had had an all white playing squad for several years - which definitely didn't help moderate the racial abuse of opposition players.

I honestly thought times had changed for the better. The bloke I called out is still a Pools regular and never shouts racist rubbish these days. Best of all, Craig Hignett is the kind of 'colour-blind' manager we needed. I can barely credit that with 4 black players on the pitch wearing blue and white any real Pools fans would be ignorant enough to use racist language.

On a different topic - Craig Hignett really need to get a grip of his own emotions on the touchline - what chance has he got of addressing Pools' disciplinary issues till he does? As others have already pointed out, crap referees are a fact of life in this division.

Good post Mr Dawes, but I can't remember the last time we didn't have any black players.

Possibly before Westy?

I have never seem anything like this in my life.
Everyone has to act.

I honestly believe we’d have this problem still if Brexit never happened simply because the seed of racism was sown in them many years ago. We have to face up to the fact that THE major cause of racism is the parents. You’ll never eliminate it, but you can address it and reduce it.
Like I said, this farce may have shafted our season good and proper.

No, after Westy. Have a look on In The Mad Crowd if you don't believe me.

Image from the incident can be found here: https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/jp-ct. ... /image.jpg

Predominantly white football team over the years with predominantly white football supporters with very little cultural education racially abuse an opposing player? No surprise here!
Be ashamed as a Hartlepool fan expect the exit doors for Toure, Mufata, Kioso and Kabamba. Quite frankly the best players for years!

The worst bit in that image is the lad in red and lass laughing their heads off

And one reason that I stopped going regularly.... EDL shite and.... Its true Snowy.... Even more racism because of Brexit and these blatantly racist political parties that have cropped up since.
I was only talking to my partner the other day about taking her to Pools.... Shes Burnley but from Sweden and is as staunchly Anti-Racist as me.... No chance now. Sad times.

I've missed a lot of matches due to other commitments, I haven't missed it to be fair.

There's too much racism, far right, bigotry. Yeah, it's a minority but it is a gobshite minority

My Dad had an Asian girlfriend, he fell out with a fellow fan after he made comments about Asian people. The same man called the person behind the Norway attacks as a hero.

I honestly can't believe some people are defending them because the players celebrated like knobs or dick heads... that still does not give anyone the right to racially abuse anyone.

That is 100% correct but it’s probably two issues being clouded which Pools I think have actually mentioned in the statement. Obviously what happened is disgusting and shameful and overrides the second one..

But it sounds like the referee wasn’t anywhere close to the standard to officiate a game with any sort of crowd or decent level of football. Even in the still image posted on here it looks like the referee is just standing there allowing the situation to deteriorate and it seems like the Pools never mind Dover players did more to try and defuse it than him.

This is what should have happened:

The stewards should have been straight on it, the referee should have told the players to get to the half way, the fans shouting racist abuse should have been arrested and should be hauled in front of the Magistrates Court on Monday morning.

Although, it is a very difficult situation for those in involved.

In an ideal scenario, there should have been no racist abuse in the first place.

Can't be sure what they're laughing at.
I'd say the worst thing is, just like the Chelsea fans against Sterling, the anger in grown men's faces. Is that really because a footballer celebrated a goal?

If you get that angry at a football match, why go?

I can't stand the 'he incited the crowd' excuse that seems to be doing the rounds in some places either. Occasionally an opposition player might celebrate close to you. They might cup their ears. If you get angry about that to the point of racism then there really is no hope for you.

There's a couple of good guys in that photo that I know - firstly, the guy in the white Pools Nike polo shirt and the guy who used to give out Monkey Business magazines. Both are top blokes. On both of them, you can see the sheer horror on their faces at what's unfolding.

That's another sad thing, you've got decent Pools fan being let down by total muppets.

People are looking for any old excuse. I heard one Pools fan tell me his town was over-run and whites were now a minority. I googled Census statistics on his town and 97% were white.

Certainly a dark day, no excuses at all for racism. The situation was not helped by the reaction of both referee and stewards. The ref was appalling, absolutely clueless . Just when you think you’ve seen the worst ref in previous games incompetence sinks to a new low! The clubs going to feel the backlash of this unfortunately.

Our stewards seem to be an amiable bunch but range from teenagers to oaps, usually there not much to do and most seem to watch the game mostly as we have so little trouble in the games. Today tested that and we failed badly, the muppet that went on the pitch should have got nowhere near and been restrained and led out till the police dealt with them. To me the ref should have taken both sets of players into the middle instead of allowing the situation carry on, whether the Dover players goaded our fans or not doesn’t matter and sorted it out? If he had had some bottle he would have ended the half and sent both teams down the tunnel instead of adding 11 minutes on in a now toxic atmosphere . The great shame hear is that allegedly Gus Matufa was abused by our so called fans in an attempt to calm down the situation, I left 8 minutes early to avoid any issues coming out of the game in which I had safety concerns and I’m a strapping lad ! I hope we sort this out and name and shame anybody involved, we have to or our reputation is permanently damaged, the lessons of kick it out etc have fallen on deaf ears.

I hope that referee never gets near a game again if the assessor was marking him!

My worry is Gus,Nicky,Gime and Peter want to leave if the think our club permits that type of behavior , I hope Raj doesn’t rethink his investment!

Makes you ashamed incidents like this, another case of the low life scum bags souring football.

Regarding stewards - 10 years ago, we had a really good steward who wore a NUFC wolly hat. He used to stand in the Town End. One match - he confronted racism. He was abused for his efforts, I spoke to him afterwards and told him he did the right thing but he was broken by the reaction he got. He wasn't there at the last match and I never saw him at Pools again.

Most are kids and look like rabbits caught in headlights, I wonder how the training went, " here`s your bright orange jacket , stand by the wall and make sure nobody gets on the pitch, we good?"

Can anyone remember the Macclesfield game (I think) where we scored and a Hartlepool fan ran onto the pitch. Somebody recorded it as the steward tried to climb and barrier and fell over. Our stewarding has always been slow to react to incidents.

Grim, grim reading this thread.

A really sad day for the club and it will tarnish our name for a while.

Decisive action needs to be taken including lifetime bans snd prosecutions. The FLA flag needs to go as well.

People blaming Brexit are wide of the mark. Many leftwungers voted Brexit too for reasons of principle.

That said Brexit is responsible for creating the poisonous atmosphere in parts of England at the moment.

The club needs to crack down very hard on this and show it won’t be tolerated. However punishment alone won’t work. There needs to be much greater education and discussion around the issue for it to be tackled properly. As an important part of civic society in Hartlepool the club needs to step up and play a much more active part in that.

I wasnt there today but brutal reading to come home to.

There's no excuse for racism.

The referee, however, shoulders a heavy responsibility for what happened today... if he had controlled the game in anything like an appropriate manner then he would have seen that Dover were deliberately trying to provoke a response from Pools and our fans. After scoring a dubious penalty one of their players sought to provoke the Pools fans. Had the ref acted swiftly he could have stopped this and a stupid idiot would not have had the opportunity to let our club down by shouting a racist remark. There's no excuse for racism.

Tonight we should be talking about the worst refereeing performance ever at the Vic. Instead a couple of stupid idiots have the let the ref off the hook and all the talk is of their behaviour.

I truly feel for the club. We will be punished. The irony is that it may be the ref's report which is used to punish us.

I'm ashamed that the town has the first Brexit Party council but that had nothing to do with what happened today....a couple of idiots and an appalling referee let a good football club down. Hang your heads in shame.

Phil were you actually at the game ?

Well i was and what baxter is saying is if the ref had taken control of the situation it would not of happened and the people who shouted racist abuse would not have been given the opportunitty to do so.

Why am i making excuses i was stood about 25 foot away and i seen exactly what happened as is happened.
The ref was no way proactive to the event he just left the players to it and thats when it kicked off and the racial abuse started.
So the people who shouted abuse will be dealt with and lessons will be learnt so what we witnessed today can not under any circumstances be witnessed again.

There's a lot of people on this site who were not even at the match castigating contributors who mention the referee being a cause of the trouble at the match today.
I will make this quite clear from the start that there in this day & age there is no room for any racist behaviour.
I have witnessed poor refereeing over the last 51 years going to watch Hartlepool & this was by a long way the poorest refereeing display by a long way.
I have had a season ticket for both Hartlepool & Sunderland for some time now & if this standard of refereeing had happened at the Stadium of Light there would have been a major riot.
There's a lot of talk about the disgusting behaviour of a handful of people (I will not seem to call supporters) but what about the other 3000 & odd who had to put up with officials who shouldn't be anywhere near a football match.

What a terrible post Old Henrovian

If you want to talk about the ref start a new thread

Why should I start a new thread when the post was titled 'What Happened', having had to witness this afternoon's proceedings, I have as much right as anyone in expressing this as anyone.
I agree that there was some error in repeating part of my post.

I can see this thread getting blocked.
Its a one we're the fishermen will be after shark not trout.

I think this type of reply is a little unfair to be honest.

I haven’t seen anyone making excuses for the moron or morons who have disgraced the club or suggest that the referee made anyone do anything. 99.9% of most people would not respond to players over celebrating a goal by becoming sub human knuckle dragging arseholes I hope the people who have brought this issue to our club end up in court personally.

But as I said earlier we are talking about two separate issues and the first one obviously in terms of seriousness overrides the second but it does sound as if the referee handled the game appallingly as well. A Dover player on Twitter has even said that referee suggested that they shouldn’t have celebrated like that in front of our fans, which if true maybe suggests how bad this bloke actually was. Why didn’t he do his job? It possibly should be talked about in a different thread but it is linked to the same incident. The club even cover the in the last line of the official statement. Surely the National League have a responsibility to send an official who’s actually capable of officiating the match?

We all agree that yesterday was a dark day for the club and need to move forward together and show everyone that a few absolutely imbeciles are not what the club and Town are all about, the issue is obviously a sensitive one and highly emotive but I don’t think having a pop at someone for giving an account of events is good.

At the end of day it’s only a game, nobody should have to confront what happened at the Vic yesterday the only people to blame are the perpetrators.

National press rightly all over this incident as well.

If Gus Mafuta still has a desire to play for this club he's a bigger man than me. The harm these idiots have caused our club is immeasurable.
Can anyone say they're proud to be a poolie today?

Where do we move forward to.....? I’d be surprised if some players don’t want to play for us again or in the future come to that.

Support the players support the club don’t let one or two imbeciles cause lasting damage to the club, make it clear that it’s not what we’re all about.

You wouldn’t blame any of the players involved for feeling like that but the message shouldn’t be that these arseholes have won or achieved anything. We are not a racist club because we have a tiny minority of thick, ignorant idiots watching us.

if the dover player had just ran back to the halfway line celebrating with his team mates then it would not have happened. rwo wrongs never make a right but lets not hide behind the anti racist banner too much. for me it was a train of events that started by the taunting of home fans. at one time this was seen as a cautionable offence but now ignored by match officials. if the miracle of pools getting an equaliser and one of our lads jumped into the town end with his shirt off we,d know the outcome. yes pools will get the most shit. players suspended, higgy with a touchline ban but guess what mr.joe johnson will be blowing his whistle somewhere in the next couple of weeks. left after the featherstone sending off. enough was enough. can understand anyone who doesn,t live round the corner packing pools and football up. dickhead players who think they can do what they want, racist fans who show their true colours at every opportunity and match officials who are not up to it but are constantly pushed for one reason or another by their local county f.a.,s. the game stinks now but yesterday showed how bad the smell really is.

That one is a terrible post mind, Jesus.

why is it terrible. we all have opinions. just because its not bleating on about racism does not mean i agree with what happened by some pools fans who possibly had one shandy too many. many wrongs yesterday and racist behaviour was just one of em.

‘Hide behind the anti racist banner’

‘Bleating about on about racism’

Need I say more? At best you don’t get it, at worst you appear to not think the issue is as serious as it is using language like that. It’s 2019 nobody anywhere should be abused because of the colour of their skin. Maybe we do have a real problem here.

So it was the the player's fault for celebrating, the ref's for not stopping him and the racist idiots may have had a drink so let's go easy on them. Fuck off man, that sort of attitude is part of the problem.

Players have every right to celebrate, even if they go over the top grown men in the stands should be able to control their emotions at a game of football.

This

This x 1000

I’m locking it before owt else daft gets said


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