So sad to hear the passing away of Bobby. We were very close friends in our school and youths. We went to ‘Wagga’ infants and then onto St aidans and TDS together in fact I was with him the night he signed for Pools. I still have memories of him and my other close friend having a ‘kick in’ on the Rec and playing billiards in our house on an eighth size table.
His record at Pools was quite good, 28goals in 64 games and he will be remembered for scoring 5 in one game (I missed it)
RIP Bobby I’ll always remember you

RIP

https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/sport/ ... ia-3089056

Sorry for the loss of your old friend Johnjo1.

That is a good record , Jimmy Greaves games to goals ratio quality even, given the Pools teams he played in. Also went on to play for Blackhall CW after that , so top man.

R I P Bobby.

Sad news. My first game was when we beat Oldham 5 to 1 after going behind, with Bobby scoring all 5. Think my facts are right.
Anyway when I met Bobby a few years ago I said to him that I didn't,t know whether to thank him or bollock him for getting me hooked on Pools. He was a nice fellah but let's hope his record is broken soon.

That's a hell of a record, it's already stood for 60 years. Only Mark Lawrence (4 in a game) has come close in any season since. Think it easily could stand for another 60!
RIP Bobby.

RIP Bobby Folland. Another old Poolie fades away.

true, cannot add to that. just a pity there was little or no footage of games from that era especially for younger fans.

Bobby certainly knew where the goal was. I believe that he personally scored a hundred goals in a season playing for Seaton HT in the local league. Pity there are no more like him for Pools to pick up.
RIP Bobby

That was Jackie Smith

Can anyone help me. I cannot find any details of Bobby’s funeral and I would hate to miss giving my respect to a great friend.

Tomorrow Friday 15 January at Stranton Crem, sorry don't know time but if you call 01429 274517 I'm sure they will let you know.

12 o’clock. Thanks very much.

So sad to see such a poor turnout for Bobby’s funeral. Barely a dozen people turned up and none from the football fraternity who we played with. Maybe because of the present COVID restrictions and lack of details. Anyway me and my mate felt good to say our goodbys.

it does seem a little sad really. think its mainly the resrictions and some actually dying before bobby did. do pools have some sort of ex players association like others have which may help in the future. its not as if bobby was an obscure player of that era but one of the brighter lights.

No excuse what so ever , for the club, not to acknowledge the death of a former player on the OS or in the programme if and when we next print one, some clubs have managed digital publications during the pandemic, not us though, as I would expect. An ex players association would be a good idea, a supporter/supporters could run it, doesn't have to be run by the club, though it would be better if it was.

Something as brief as this would do. I didn't even realise this player existed , until I saw him whilst watching THE BIG MATCH REVISITED the other day.

https://www.nufc.co.uk/news/latest-news ... 1948-2020/

https://www.nufc.co.uk/news/latest-news ... 1948-2020/

Couple of familiar faces on this mornings episode of BMR, Alan Little playing for Southend and the late great Cyril Knowles playing for Spurs.

I said the same thing after I discovered John Rowlands sad death from COVID last April hadn’t been acknowledged by the club. It was covered by other ex clubs of his but not Pools.

It doesn’t take much organising surely, I’d do it myself if I had access to their systems...

Yep, same here. A few have died during Covid, Rowlands,Gauden, Phythian, Folland, Tunstall, that I know of.

[quote="JohnnyMars"][

I said the same thing after I discovered John Rowlands sad death from COVID last April hadn’t been acknowledged by the club. It was covered by other ex clubs of his but not Pools.

there was certainly an article about john on the official stockport county website and he didn,t play as long for them as he did with pools. is it pools have not got the time or any interest in players from the past. its not as if these lads are one game obscturities from a distance past that we have all forgotton about.

try and get hold of a couple of ex players and form an ex players association and everything will come from that. at least two teams in our league have them and its rare that anything gets past them. one knows someone and another knows someone ele etc. etc. halifax and stockport are the ones i know and my lad knows the guys at the latter. if you or anyone else are interested i,ll find out the info from him about stockport and i,m sure they,d be willing to help in how to set things up at the outset.

That’s right Accrington I saw it on Stockport‘s website, a good write up it was as well. He was deserving of it, I remember John Rowlands as being the best header of a ball I have ever seen and I’m sure there are many other Pools fans who remember him.

We have had hard times throughout our history but we always managed to remember and acknowledge those who have represented the club in the past and we should continue to do so.

[quote="JohnnyMars"]That’s right Accrington I saw it on Stockport‘s website, a good write up it was as well. He was deserving of it, I remember John Rowlands as being the best header of a ball I have ever seen and I’m sure there are many other Pools fans who remember him.

totally true. if he had been equally as good with his feet we,d have never seen him in a pools jersey.

Think there was something on the Barrow site as well about Rowlands , and Bolton and Wrexham sites about Phythian, Darlo site about Gauden. FFS ! Phythian was our only player ever to top the divisional scoring charts in 66/67.

Sure our good friends up the road would be happy to help anyone thinking of setting up a Hartlepool United Former Players Association.

http://www.sunderlandafcformerplayersas ... sociation/

It's obvious that the OS has no connection with the club's past because whatever work is done on it is done by a younger fan or fans associated with the North West Corner. In general I don't have a problem with that because younger fans are the club's lifeblood going forward, but not honouring the passing of former players is a terrible state of affairs for a professional football club.

The club and its fans are extremely fortunate to have a wonderful online resource http://www.inthemadcrowd.co.uk/UI/Home.aspx maintained by a long-time fan at his own expense. All that's needed for a basic obituary for any former player is right there and waiting to be used.

If only there was someone to say 'get that done' but the club still resembles the Marie Celeste away from the playing side. No news on the appointment of a Chief Operating Officer advertised on the 13th November (!!) and the OS still lists Martin Jesper as Chief Executive and Ian Scobie as a Director. Jesper's linkedin page says he left Pools in December.

I vaguely remember something on here about some bloke holding the fort post-Jesper, but I might have dreamt that.

Was a shambles the club didn't comment on Ernie Phythian, mind at the time the club were completely radio silent on social media. This was the time inbetween Simpson and Chandy. They even deactived the club facebook, why the fuck would a club deactivate a potential revenue stream?

Do younger fans these days , have no interest or knowledge of the past? I started going in 1971 but was still aware of the Man U 1957 and 67/68 promotion teams , and that was before the internet. There is simply no excuse for how the club have communicated since Covid, if a young supporter struggles with what happened in the past, they only have to ask and older person for help, other clubs seem to manage it.

Whilst I believe the club should acknowledge ex players the ex player associations appear to be run by the ex players. and not the clubs. I believe a good one is Middlesbrough run by Jim Platt and the Sunderland one was run by an ex police officer who had only played in the reserves for them, sadly he died recently so I don’t know who has taken over.
At the present time Barron, Humphries,Nelson,Tinkler, Lee and Sweeney seem to be quite close why don’t they start an ex players association?

What always amazes me is the number of ex players in the town or nearby who never come to games.

it might amaze you even more to find out that many do not actually love the game as much as we do. its something they were just good at and far better to play than doing some mundane job or like the old days working in shipyards or down the pit.

I remember a couple of years back the club invited ex players back and introduced them to the crowd before the kick off. I thought you two faced ***** you never come any where near the ground. Some of them were friends who just seem to lose interest in football after stopping playing.

if it had not been for me pestering my old man to take me to games i doubt he,d have gone to more than a couple of games a season after he packed up playing. even then i had to suffer 25 years of em not being as good as they were in the old days, cannot control the ball, take a corner, head the ball or even foul without being caught out. goodnees knows what he,d have thought of pools over the last few years. this could be another reason ex players stay well away from the vic.

I agree with Accy's point about not loving the game and the "it was just a job" attitude.
We wouldn't expect a shelf stacker in Tesco's who, on retirement, decided to get his entertainment by visiting supermarkets to watch shelf stackers perform and have to pay for the privilege.

I think you are taking it a bit far with shelf stacker. Football is a sport/entertainment and come on when we finished playing we became spectators and of course critics.

Yes I know, hence the smiley face

I know lots of players, who weren't fanatical about the game in general. Footballers like any other workers, have the right to just treat it as a job, then once they retire , walk away from it and do other things. Given that Pools probably had more players than most other clubs, players who didnt hang around long and didnt play many games in struggling teams constantly harangued by 1500 lunatics, not surprised many don't want anything to do with the club.

plus years of being stopped as they are going into the ground by fans asking em stupid questions, taking selfies with em and thinking they are good mates. doing this at various clubs for 15 years biting yiur tongue because of not wanting to upset fans and cause trouble kills a lot of interest when they pack up. its worse than being a film star as they know the back slappers will be first to give em shit if they are having a bad game.

Never been into idolatry myself, especially someone who only played football for a living, and for Pools at that