It sounds like they have made Mark Simpson redundant which is an awful way to treat and loyal and more importantly very competent member of staff. Him and groundsman are the only people who have consistently done a good job at Pools over the years.

A massive own goal from the owner. We all know times are hard but you surely have to treat people better than that he has been at the club for it must be close to 20 years? At least they’ll have nobody to report it....

Simpson was a great commentator and I have spoke to him twice once over the phone (least I think it was him) and once over email and he was a pleasure. Very sad, hope he can someday be rehired.

Very poor decision by the club. Wont get many who do as good a job as he does.

Very disapointed.

I thought it was strange that he had dissapeared from Twitter. He has been a Pools star through a very difficult time.

Thank you Mark for all the effort you have put in and the humour you have shown. We exiles will miss you. I hope you find a new position in football as you are one of the good guys.

Why are the club sacking people not furloughing them?

I bet Mark Maguire still picking up his wages

Jeff Stelling on Twitter says it's to cut the wage bill for next season.

Mark deserves better after the loyalty he has shown Pools over the years. For not a lot of money he has had to take a lot of stick through the Hodcroft years when the lack of communication was obviously not his decision, through the Coxberg era when he had to tread a very careful line.

Theoughout he has developed into a very good and passionate broadcaster. I hope this turns out to be a blessing in disguise and he picks up something in the media world because he deserves better than this.

Sad news and to say I'm disappointed is an understatement. He was dedicated to the club.
Sorry, Mark and the best of luck from Clare, Katy and me.
Thanks for all the help you have given us.

Shambles of a decision, why not just furlough him? Sure he'd rather be on 80% than redundancy.

Double post...sorry.

I suspect there is more bad news to come.

So it seems, mate.

If the club don't think the club can justify a full time media manager next season then I understand that, it will be our fourth season in non league. I get it, it's sad and not good that someone as good as Mark would be leaving the club but if they had done it properly with the respect and dignity he deserved then I reckon people would accept that. It being revealed on Twitter by Micky Barron is just shabby.

But for a start it's not even the end of the season, who knows when it will be. Technically we could still get promoted this season. The government has the furlough scheme in place to protect jobs and owners during this crisis. The timing is crass, insensitive and completely unjustifiable. The media manager is the one person who can do his job at the moment and keep the fans engaged in the club, which he was doing a good job of until five days ago.

This is dreadful and I have grave concerns for the future of the club.

Shocking, it's just no way to threat someone who has worked at the club for 18 years. He stuck with Pools through times of crisis and went above and beyond when I bet he didn't even know if he was going to get paid next month, yet when they boots on the other foot he's treat like this?

Pretty fair summary that pj.


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exactly. hold the front page.

It is very bad on the club not to officially announce Mark's redundancy on the club website with their gratitude for a job well done often under very difficult circumstances, rather than via Micky Barron.
Mark did a great job on commentary alys with a slight Pools slant but never bias as has been born out when he has had to report on the crowd troubles this season. He was a master communicator and a very easy person to speak to and always open to new ideas. We will miss you in the future Mark and good luck to you.

I say this slightly tongue in cheek but maybe they don’t have anyone left who knows how to post anything on the website......

Great guy Mark and thanks.
I am sure he will be snapped up very quickly as he is excellent at his job.

HUFC the club that never stops disappointing.

If they feel they have to cut the wage of the media guy we can also expect a much lower playing staff budget next season, maybe we'll even see some part-time players?

If you read this Mark thanks for all you did for the club despite the shite you had to put up with at times.

The worst part is there is some very very sad people that are happy with this decision

You know who you are


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For me it, sad as it is, it tells of a bigger story. If the cashflow is so tight that four people earning no fortune can’t be furloughed then the club is in a very dire place financially.

The supporters trust was set up for such an occasion. If the alleged 150k in the bank isn’t used to invest in the club in times like these then what the hell is it there for.

I don't think it is a cash flow issue. Making people redundant means the club have to pay redundancy now rather than them being furloughed and paid monthly by the state. It seems to be more an issue of reducing next years budget. I think we can expect a much smaller squad and support staff.

Only been 2 staff in the office/club shop for a few months.

How much smaller can it be?

Think the club have missed a trick there like, employing two members of staff when one would've sufficed.

The chairman has form for this type of move.
Like putting a club into administration just before Xmas and only paying certain players while leaving others with nothing.
The thing with Singh is he won't pay out more than he is prepared to over a sustained period. Your advantage is that you don't have the millstone like the arena round your necks so it's more sustainable in that way if he gets the outgoings to a level he is happy to cover. Might rule out any chance of promotion for the foreseeable future though.

That is shite. Whenever I had any dealings with Mark he was always spot on. Handled loads of shit amazingly well in very difficult circumstances.

I hope he returns to the club in some capacity in the future. Until them I wish him the best of luck.

Personally I don’t understand why Singh is doing this. The furlough scheme means he can keep people on. If I was one of the people concerned here I would be kicking off. Why sack me? Why not place me on the furlough scheme?

As a Darlo fan I don’t like Singh. It’s not even so much what he did to us, but how he did it.

As an outsider I feel that Singh should explain himself re these sackings, He most likely won’t though.

It is easy to criticise. Obviously not good for anyone to go. The first lot of redundancies didn't even get a mention on here despite making the Official site.

We can have a go at the owner but without him we wouldn't have a team at this level. The squad this season was ridiculously big, presumably under the persuasion of Hignett. The transfer deadline clearance of players for small sums was a clue. Challinor had come in with high wage loan players to add too the bills in a valiant attempt to make the Play Offs.

These redundancies show how close the club is to the edge and the likelihood of a scrapped season is going too lead to a much reduced budget as clearly we have overspent a lot this year.

The Government furlough scheme is great but only covers 80% of wages and does not cover the loss of income for however many months this continues.

It may be easier for businesses making profits to succeed but sadly there are few football clubs operating at a profit. The delay in selling season tickets for next season was also cited as a reason for the cashflow troubles.

As with IOR the owner gets the stick for lack of success or cost cutting but sometimes a reality check is needed. There a lot of companies going under, people don't seem to be aware of the financial implications of Coronavirus, more loans and debts and who could blame Mr Singh if they are too much to take on.

As always if anyone wants to take over and realise the difficulty of making a football club sustainable, I am sure Mr Singh will only be too welcome to let them take over.

There are lot of people who will be much worse off after normality returns and though this is sad there are much poorer people in trouble in life.

The biggest issue for me is not that it’s been done, I understand the implications of the current situation coupled with the financial position that was inherited I said that in my post this morning it’s how it’s been done.

You will have to keep in mind that Singh gets a lot of his income from care homes who will be hit hard at this current time with added costs and staffing issues. Some of his income also comes from property which is also a dead market at the moment. He will be cutting back on anything he thinks is unnecessary.

That’s on the assumption singh would welcome investment

The trust could offer 100k for I dunno 15% but he might ask if it’s even worth it for every decision he makes to be questioned by fans, such as I dunno redundancies.

I run a business, and I like doing things my own way, some mush could offer me money for a stake but then question everything I do, could I be arsed? Not really.


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Some of the comments towards Mark have been ridiculous from the usual mensa lot online. The amount of time and effort Mark put into the club over the years is above and beyond what his role should be. Few idiots have personal agendas against him, pathetic.

I try to avoid posting outside of the official HUST pages where possible and I remind folk that there are a wide variety of ways for people to get in touch directly with HUST, however, on this occasion I will make an exception.

Over the past two years both directly to Mr Singh and a number of times via Mark Maguire HUST have been clear that if the opportunity for community investment in the football club with a position for fans to have involvement in the running of the club arose then we would very much like to discuss it. Sustainable equity investment to support private owners has been something discussed with HUST members since its inception and that could be done from the HUST investment reserve, through raising a community share issue with HUST as the facilitator, or a combination of both. Any investment of reserved funds would be approved by a majority vote of all HUST members.

Would I personally have liked to have invested earlier, particularly at the start? Of course I would, but unfortunately, when Mr Singh took over the funds simply weren't there, which was amplified when some large donations that had allegedly been promised failed to materialise. It has been a slog since the to build the existing fund but the remaining volunteers involved have done the absolute best under the circumstances. The easiest way for people to support HUST is by simply paying an annual membership fee. As it stands we lost a lot of members since the take over with the same feedback "we're safe now", as is everyone's individual prerogative, but without perhaps the foresight we might need in time.

HUST have always fundraised and there are a long list of ways people could have supported the society if they chose to do so. Would HUST like a bigger pot? Of course. Would more be needed if Mr Singh walked away? Definitely. But has anyone involved with HUST done anything to block use of its funds to invest in Pools? Absolutely not.

I draw people's attention to the excellent work by the Bluebirds Trust at Barrow. These are a great example of how a Trust and club can work in unison and create a real community feel which allows for fan investment. To create a successful community share issue there needs to be absolute clarity on what the investment opportunity is, and what the responsibilities and commitments of the club and trust are and they have an excellent example on their website. Hopefully this is a model that HUST and HUFC will be able to build on at some stage.

I hopefully don't have to remind anyone that HUST isn't there simply to pay some bills as a one off gesture (and personally I don't believe that that would be the best way forward longer term by any fan group), and I refer everyone to HUST's constitution for more detail:

https://www.hufcsupporterstrust.org.uk/ ... 4rules.pdf

Kind regards,

Richard

Keep up the good work Richard

Without getting into the detail of all that because I would challenge a number of those statements.

Has the club been approached in the last few days and weeks with an offer to invest in exchange for an equity stake.

He's not the 1st to go and certainly won't be the last.
Fully expect the coaching staff to be reduced along with a few more players.
We a struggling non league club before corona kicked in. The cloth has to be cut accordingly.
Raj n Co doing there best to keep pools alive.
UTP.

But why would you let go, probably one of the only , if not the only, thing that was going well at the club at the moment ,someone who was doing a good job and universally popular.

Hello, fellas - thanks for your mainly kind comments on this thread. It's very much appreciated.

Was going to wait a while and put a considered message on here - I probably still will...

But 'Horden' - I am not sure the person who told you about "problems of a disciplinary nature" is real or made up, but why would you put that on a public forum for discussion without knowing for sure it had any tiny hint of truth?

For the record, it does not. And I wouldn't mind you editing your post to reflect that.

Good idea for a thread, what did Mark do?

My money's on the PTSD from the bottle/car incident causing a violent outburst over warm water bottles.

I’ve edited it Mark.

Thank you, John - much appreciated. It was like Andrew Davies' shinpads all over again!

As I explained Mark, I said I had heard , I never said I knew for sure, as for putting that on a public forum , why not? especially in the absence of the club failing to let us know what was going on. By all means feel free to edit it, if its not true. My mentioning it has quashed the rumours though so fair play to Horden for that. Thank you for coming on here and putting things straight . I am sure you will be a big miss at the club , and I wish you the best of luck for the future.

PS. You have to admit though the Andrew Davies story was a good un

all that is true, but i doubt pools employ more than other clubs at our level. look at any away programmes you have got and most clubs have a similar number of coaching and backroom staff. think the present situation is not just a pools thing but a low league football thing in general.

Mark, if you're bored between jobs a book of your Pools memoirs could make you a bob or two! I'm sure you have numerous stories that would be of interest to the fans!
I'd of said a podcast but not sure there's much money in that unless you can find a good sponsor.

A book would be great but I'd imagine he has got a pile of Non-Disclosure Agreements as tall as his house.

Give us some pam stories!


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Get a smaller house then

Would leaving names out still break the NDA? Or just leaving enough to the reader's own imagination to get around it maybe?

I'm sure there's a book shop being run from upstairs in Mario's Barbers that might publish it.

The official pools podcast was great too!