Its not just as clear as "success or failure".
Just like watching Juke Box Jury i rarely gave a "hit or a miss" it was always somewhere in the middle.

Definitely it will be make or break for Raj in January but the most he can do is back KC's decisions and recommendations. If he does back KC he has to sit and wait like the rest of us. If he doesn't he will get that much stick and abuse I reckon he'll walk away. Then we will probably face administration and be playing the likes of Bury again.
It doesn't look good.

Juke Box Jury eh. The good old days when you actually had heard of the celebraties who were on the panel. What has the next 50 odd years given us. Shite.

if he does provide the right funds and curle does bring some deadlegs into the club that ultimatly relegate us i hope fans have the sense who they will blame for it. Raj is only the owner not the scout, coach or manager.

I think a club where fans en masse actually keep predicting relegation leads to a spiral of acceptance of it amongst the playing staff, encouragement through gritted teeth is probably a more constructive option. Those with the knives out are always with us….. but some seem to want to invite Armageddon to say ‘I told you so, I was right all along’….a bit like the B52 pilot in Dr Stangelove who plummets to earth on his own hydrogen bomb cheering as he falls to his own destruction……
If we do avoid relegation, doubtless it’ll become another great escape and go down in Poolie folklore as another great escape in the ‘Hall of Fame of Great Escapes’….. but there’s no future in that. just relief …and there’s no medals for relief.

Everyone seems to be entitled nowadays….and they need a whipping boy.
Sad really but some people never analyse things, they just go for a target and sink their teeth in.

And here we are. OK, its only the 10th day of the most important month in the history of HUFC, but is too early to panic? Answers, on a postcard, to Raj and his merry advisers.

Most people on here have been panicking since the end of August. Plus ca change, as they say in Saltburn.

Two signings in 10 days? That means we're on course for 6 by the end of the window

https://theconversation.com/do-optimist ... ays-184785

There’s been an awful lot of …‘most important months in the history of HUFC’ …since I started full time at Pools in 1969.
Just another football iceberg on the horizon.

There's plenty of window left and besides, who cares about the actual fixtures we have to play in January with kids on the bench. No rush.

Yeah, spot on. So what if we get relegated? Its happened before and it will happen again. No big deal. If we end up in National League North, who cares, at least we'll play Darlo again and besides, it happened to Stockport and now look at them? Cant understand all this anxiety. We should all take a chill pill.

a lot depends on the level you actually want pools to play at. since the rotherham defeat have the games been any better than the ones we saw in the national league. a win is a win no matter who the opposition is and at times its psycological that the games against traditional non league clubs with 20 away fans are going to be crap even before a ball is being kicked. the big fact is we,d probebly lose 1000 with relegation and another somolar number if we went down again.

Yes, I agree. I was being ironic with my post above. Relegation would be an absolute disaster potentially leading to the end of Pools as a professional outfit. We have a town of 100,000 plus. We should be able to maintain a small club in the Football League.

We need a Poolie fanatic to own the club, who has pots of cash or the Charisma to gather a consortium, who collectively have pots of cash. So it is a sugar daddy needed to create the former Scenario or someone like Jeff Stelling to create the latter.
Whilst we have neither we are reliant on Raj, who saved us in the first instance, oversaw promotion out of oblivion in the second instance but is subsequently unable to gather any more momentum and, as a result, the club is going backwards.
Raj needs to decide if he is the man with the necessary resources to arrest this return journey into oblivion or take the necessary steps to pass the baton to another, given that a genuinely interested party, with the right credentials and willingness, actually exists.

We need a Poolie fanatic with money to burn, Pools will never be profitable, IOR were allegedly bankrolling Pools to a million pounds a season, Raj Singh won’t be doing that as he doesn’t have the funds albeit IOR linked Pools as part of the IOR to offset tax or some thing similar in an offshore company based in the Virgin Islands.
The best we can hope for is a Poolie fanatic to win the Euro millions, there isn’t a millionaire in the area who would be prepared to take Pools on.

We are basically on the same page apart from IOR were putting in one and a half million a season. An Arabian prince who suddenly gets the idea that taking Pools from where we are to the top of the heap is the cool thing to do.
I wonder if Aladdin still has his lamp.

Supporting Pools has mostly been like being a passenger on the Titanic, but without the lifeboats and actually expecting to hit the iceberg.
We were the ones daft enough to buy a lifetime ticket despite the history, the triumph of hope over common sense.

God do we need a fanatical poolie as an owner but where are they? I’ve been waiting the arrival of a saviour all my life…and eventually even IOR faded away…..
I should have taken up manhole cover collecting or freestyle non ferrous budgie welding… though my luck it would probably go tits up.

We aren't quite halfway through the window and we have 3 signings. On the face of it, we appear to have made progress, but not enough yet.

Curle is insistent that any signings made this window will be able to impact the first team.

Dolan definitely will improve us, Hartley (at this stage of career) and Dodds are unknown quantities. However both have trained with us for some time now so Curle has had time to make his assessment, time will tell if Curle has made the right call on them two.

I don't believe this is the end of comings and goings at the club, lets see where we finish on Jan 31st.

Until we offload other players I can’t see any more signings, Curle has told the players who don’t have a future at Pools and their agents should be circulating their names to other clubs, I won’t hold my breath on any clubs taking any of them.

Raj has mentioned numerous times we have the budget for 4-5 new players who will go straight into the first team squad.

Remember Robinson has gone, Taylor gone, Odour gone and Patterson.

Missilou is out of contract soon and may leave.

Ndjoli is apparently close to leaving and we may get shot of 1-2 others.

We will likely need more than 5 in (we have 3 already) just to have a competitive squad.

We will definitely make a loss this season, meaning Raj will have to cover that off himself.

Pools currently have 3 keepers on the books and 22 outfield players, not including the academy lads. 21 if Missilou's current deal isn't extended. It was due to expire yesterday so there should be some news one way or the other on that today.

The squad often seems smaller than that but Curle has had to cope with 3 long-term injuries (Crawford, Niang and Lacey) and Jamie Sterry more often unavailable than available. Menayese was out for 8 games and Pools won 1 lost 7. Then him and Sterry came back into the side and we comfortably beat Crawley and Rochdale away. The next 2 league games we had Sterry out again and one fit centre back...

KC knows he needs enough depth in the squad to put out a competent 11 every game for the rest of the season, regardless of future injuries and suspensions. Raj knows he needs to back his manager to keep Pools up. Umerah's injury scare on Saturday underlines that signing a Johnson or a Bennett up front is the absolute priority. Curle has plenty of scope to bring in loan players - think we only have one loanee (Hamilton) on the books.

Menayese is on loan and technically so is Dolan.

I think it’s a problem for any owner finding the right manager, look at Chelsea, Potter then compare him to Howe at Newcastle both have the funds but I can’t see Potter lasting at Chelsea if the the results don’t improve.

You look at what we sign then you look what Gillingham and Colchester are signing, it's worrying. Yes we can claim Dolan will improve us let's be honest, 99 percent could in this league, we sign a player we had years ago an unknown quantity now and the usual boro lad. I seriously fear for us. We need to go out and finally spend some decent money on staying up or it will cost raj a fortune and us our football league status

and if we do survive what is going to happen in the summer to stop us having another poor seasons next time around.

I think we all know things aren't going to improve vastly in the summer, but what we got to ensure is we are not non league by then. Raj will eventually walk away and no doubt blame the fans for getting on his back or the council as his way out. Let's just hope he let's the club go to someone decent.

To be fair to Potter,, he had the same problem at Brighton but he put his ways across and it worked.
The Chelsea ‘fans’ are a pack of entitled Premiership sheep who demand instant gratification, devoid of patience or vision.

All that matters is survival, next season can look after itself when it happens.
We need a midfielder with an attitude in midfield, another forward and a keeper, just my opinion like.

Off the field too, apart from the work that Suit Direct have done to the Clarence Road frontage and the excellent work done by our volunteers and fan groups the ground is still stuck in the dark ages, the council should be ashamed as owners as to their contribution (if any), the approaches are embarrassing, the rust breaking through the tired paintwork is there for all to see.

I watched a Stoke supporters blog a few days ago on our cup game and they continuously referred to our ground as "tinpot" and to be fair it's hard to argue with that statement, it really needs several million investing in it not sticking plasters as has been the case over the last few decades and before, there are teams in the Northern League who have better facilities than ours

Yes, I missed Menayese. Wishful thinking

Unless you have a few avid Pools supporters on the Council nought will change, Ian Wright used to attend games but he never engaged in any shape or form with Pools in his capacity as the MP for the town.

I recall the T D C built the Riverside for the Boro….they built the turnstile block’s on the Mill House side for us… ..it’s surprising how many stadiums are rebuilt for clubs without the clubs spending a penny.
I’ve never found the Council that interested in the club to be honest, just tenants.

A landlord renting a property is responsible for (and I quote):-
Repairs to the structure and exterior of the property (amongst other things), very little evidence of that I see in and around our stadium, I trip over potholes on the way out of the ground towards the Mill House (in the dark) and pools of rainwater I've been tiptoeing around that I was tripping over or turning my ankle on 40 years ago.... that's progress for you.

You’d need to see the terms of the tenancy, but that apart, the club brings visitors to the town and things like this leave a bad impression….wouldn’t be surprised if the road on the Mill House side was laid by the Romans and never been maintained since.

Laid by Romanies more like - and they did the guttering on a dozen houses the same day.

even if the road is legally pools responsibility it would not the council to repair the thing. then they could put up a plaque calling the road after some councillor or other. they love all that. do the council actually enjoy the town still being a music hall joke as the vast numbers who visit it are football fans from august to may see it.

Pools could think it’s not top of the agenda, why lash out money which might only be an issue a couple of times a month.

If somebody broke their ankle or hip and put a claim in bet they'd sharp fix it.

It would more likely provoke a massive row between the council and the club after the appointment of a loss adjuster. It's their job to apportion financial responsibility for meeting a claim. If responsibility for maintaining the access routes adjacent to the Mill House stand isn't clearly set out in the ground lease agreement there'd be hell on.

would take years and years to get money off em as well if falling down an open coal shute was for me on a poorly lit street in the rain. only got brused but could have been far worse if it had happened to someone frail.

Fact is, this has been a bone of contention for years. I’ve seen money wasted by far more pointless and irrelevant things than this small stretch of road which comes to the fore on match days, especially on night matches and coming out of Saturday matches when it gets dark early.
Looking at the land in question, was the area where the deserted five a side pitches were built, part of the parcel of land ?
I seriously think Councillors don’t give a flying fuck about the club sometimes, though they’re sharp off the mark to bask in the good things that used to happen…maybe H’Angus winning the election put some Councillor’s noses out….?

I have attached a map of the land leased by HUFC from the council. It clearly shows that the access road to the Mill House side of the ground is within the land leased. I received a covering letter with this map which states that maintenance of the track is Hartlepool United responsibility.

Thanks - that settles it. Enlightened self-interest (the potential financial cost of a serious injury claim, not to mention the loss of goodwill and damage to the club's reputation) ought to have prompted action by HUFC years ago. Don't leave it to Hobin's successor's in tray Raj - get it sorted.

According to that map, one of Mill Houses outdoor 5 a side pitches is Pools responsibility as well as part of Morrisons access road for deliveries….the map is 25 years old.

Who supplied this map…is there a more current map as this is obviously out date.

To the best of my knowledge the lease negotiated by the club in the mid nineties has not been modified or reviewed. Although certain aspects of the map have changed the boundaries are the same.

Raj is as tight as a duck’s arse and as thin skinned as anything. Always tries to get things on the cheap. Hasn’t changed since he was at Darlo.


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Saves the club. Employs DC, rides the crest of a wave. DC tell hims to stick it as he didn’t give him what he absolutely deserved. Watches the club fall apart whilst turning down alleged credible bids for the club… I’d say it’s a pretty large fail.

I went to the corner shop yesterday n was short changed by 1p.
Talk about ducks arses.

I’ll agree with most of that, but….DC was going anyway no matter what.

We keep hearing all about the credible bids but from who, I can’t blame Singh wanting back any of his monies he has put into the club I’d any, he is a business man not a die hard Poolie with money to burn. .

I am still trying to fathom out why he ever bought Pools and took the debt on, did he do a business plan and actually work out if the club could be run profitability and successfully with attendances of around 5000. In the IOR days we had attendances in excess of 5000 but the club paper losses were a million pounds a season.

Singh does not have the backing which IOR had (they only had 20 employees in Aberdeen) from Berg Larsen of LOG/DNO. Pools were registered in the Virgin Islands as part of IOR, it started to fall apart when Larsen was jailed for 5 years for tax evasion in 2013 but he later won an appeal, Larsen stopped backing Pools and IOR only being a small company couldn’t sustain the losses and sold Pools.