Singh has put on record that it is totally his fault that we are in this mess. He said that when he appointed Hartley his judgement and decision making was exceptionally poor. He did the same with Darlo so it worries me that he didn’t learn his lesson. You don’t need to be a genius to understand that signing third division class Scottish players would struggle in league 2. Hartley obviously got them on the cheap and I am afraid in all walks of life poor quality ingredients never make a superior product. No disrespect to the Scottish lads buy the way. At most the majority of the squad are northern league standard and that is why are we down. Can this squad compete in the conference league. My opinion is no. Again I am not blaming these guys it’s not their fault. There is very little difference between the conference and league 2 and I am afraid if we keep the majority of this team there will be another relegation next season. Sorry but it’s what I see. So how do we move forward. I personally think we need a new owner but it’s going to be extremely difficult to find one and Singh may just decide to go anyway if he gets too much criticism from fans. I understand from a conversation with my brother who knows some one whom is friendly with Pools Accountant that the books are surprisingly very good. So that’s a good omen for a new owner. As regards what our squad will look like in August is anybodies guess. We only have about 4 good players. Sterry will go, Umerah will go, Kemp will go back to Wimbledon . Dodds I think is still in contract. Murray showed some promise. Ferguson is passed it, Sylla will leave. So unless we can get rid of the rest which is going to be really difficult we are going to struggle to attract league 2, league 1 players to this club. We also need Askey to stay and to be honest reading his body language last night I think it could prove to be difficult. Next season will be a right off as there is just so much to do to get rid of the dead wood and build a team of winners like legend Dave Challinor did. Over to you lads your thoughts!

Our problem on the field is too many surplus players ‘hanging about’ the club with a contract who are just useless mouths to feed.
It would be good if we could come to some agreement to be rid of the ‘unusables’ and clear the decks, because they’re going to be paid for next season to do nowt anyway and having players about who realise they’re not going to get a game is never good.

The season was in turmoil the minute pre season began and I did try to tell a certain few on here that. Cancelled friendlies, no strikers and a transfer policy that stood out a mile. Anyone with any football acumen said we were in trouble (hate to say I told you so.) We lost our messiah in DC. The transfer windows… just remember the transfer windows. Get the pizzas in. We had 8 strikers lined up and got a left back. This is not normal. This is northern conference strategy. Not a football league club. Did we throw the towel in when Dave Challinor - a proper football man and legend - ran away to the national league? Yes we did. Even the utter shambles of the latest transfer window… judge me after the window he said. Well we did, you relegated us you mong!

Paul Hartley. A manager everybody got right up because he had won a few games in the doldrums in Scotland. Seriously. I got berated on this forum over the summer for being negative when merely stating facts. Oh boy was I right.

Hartlepool fans were found to be the most deluded in the UK in research - and correct - that proved to be true. Hastie, Niang and Murray were called out as world beaters after a pre season where we barely scored a goal and the latter only got fit (apparently) by the Grimsby game. A professional footballer……

We have an owner who quite frankly couldn’t give a shit who sees it right to wobble his head and walk out yesterday at 2-0 down. A coward who would have done naff all were it not for Challinor.

Our place is exchanged with Wrexham. Oh what could have been. Is anything ever good and simple with this god forsaken football club. No. Does it deserve better? No. Ran like absolute muck and followed by deluded idiots such as myself who think it will ever do anything of note in the profession it operates in. It never will cos it’s crap. Always has been and always will be.

Hogans, Poolie1, Snowy (what an unreal collective by the way!) - I’m afraid you lads have shown yourselves to know very little about league football and quite rightly find yourselves as supporters of a national league club. The red flags were there from the get go and as far as I’m concerned we deserve relegation. We deserve every bit of the pain that is to ensue in the National League. The football team was never good enough, an absolute stain on the prestige of the football league, we take our rightful place in the gutter of the conference. Oh and I expect all our best players will leave… as they always do. See Oates, Johnson, Molyneux etc. Again, I was hounded for saying we wouldn’t replace these goals. Why is it that any self respecting footballer that succeeds in the blue and white runs for a different football club the minute there is interest? An utter embarrassment for all concerned, including myself - I present you… Hartlepool United FC. A complete FARCE.

Rewind to the summer window n Hartley stated a few times im struggling with me targets.
Probably had no choice to do the cheao n nasty Scottish dog n dug leagues.
Eveey TWindow since Promotion has been a unambitious scrapeing the barrel shit.
100% failure lies with RS.
Clueless about football n greedy.
Perfect combo for failure.
Pools RIP.
Anutha relegation again next season or even Administration..

Start again. Put us all out our misery.

KPG agree with every word of your post above.

I totally agree. However, to be fair to Snowy, he has held up his hands and said he was wrong and he is very much still present on here suffering with the rest of us.

other clubs will have the same but they possibly could walk into our side. our surplus ones will be really hard pushed to find any club to take em on unless its a part time pro league where then we would have to waste part of next seasons budget paying them off. what annoys me is if you are crap at your current job you get the sack if it is proved, but just because you are under contract you have to be paid.

As for the club having been and always will be crap, I beg to differ.
As for saying we know very little about league football, we’ll you’d better include yourself in that category and check your own posts because you welcomed Hartley’s arrival, you really should read your old posts, I did.
So endeth the lesson.
As for the National League, you get angry, you calm down, you adapt…it’s the grown up thing to do.

I feel totally let down by what has happened. This club in the right hands could easily be a steady league 1 or 2 club.
It needs a complete root and branch rebuild.
Yesterday saw an opportunity to get the floating supporters on board and get the bug. They wont be back and next season we will be back to the hard core.

League football buts a town on the map and its not just the football club that has been relegated.
All should hang their head in shame.

Let’s not go back to the summer where you and your little mate Poolie1 made yourselves look like utter morons. I know we’re all on the same side here but you know what… I told you so. I told you we would be goosed this season and you had the blinkers on. Spin it into some metaphor all you want but the fact it was you and Poolie1 as a little team. Hilarious, honestly.

Without a doubt. Lots of folk will lose their jobs now. For what… Raj’s Scottish gamble.

Bit too much blather there so I've reduced your message to its essence. All hail thebigdog

Not sure why you lumped me in with poolie1 and Snowy when I stayed right out of the reams and reams of insults on thread after thread exchanged between you, a few others and those two in pre-season? Is it because you can't bear to to have any of your posts contradicted by anyone?

Well done

Well done you for being the first to direct recriminations at other supporters - and all to boost your own sense of self-importance. Pathetic.

Ooooooo

By all means throw recriminations at poolie1, who was just an obnoxious bully.

But snowy said he would give the team ten games before coming to a conclusion and was good to his word.

The problem with the "I told you so" brigade is they only bleat when they consider themselves to be proved right, which is usually not very often but never hold up their hands when they are wrong. So, Mr Bigdog, we've heard your crowing and now it's gonna stop. Have a little chat with yourself. Nobody is right all of the time, not even self appointed experts like you. I like reading the contributions that Mr Hogans and Snowy make to this forum but I'm not too enamoured with your contribution to this thread. BE WARNED. Look up the word HUMILITY and take notice.

football has to be the only thing in life where people can be happy about forcasting a disaster to just suit an agenda they have.

Oh we will go back to the summer, because you on here backed Hartley’s appointment… with your usual cover your back footnote.. but you approved.
We know you don’t like being contradicted, but your comments about the club are appalling …. I see no problem in criticising owners, managers, players even, but the club is only about the supporters, the others in general are just passing through and they all go eventually but the supporters are the club.
So after spilling that bile about the club, I can only assume you’ll be severing all connections with the club……?
As for Poolie 1 ?….I haven’t a clue who he is, so you can put that to bed.
The difference between me and you is I have no problem holding my hands up when I’m wrong, I can cope with it, whereas you can’t.

For me the writing was on the wall after I watched the friendly v Hibs, we struggled to put a team together in fact the tour should have been cancelled to the lack of players, it was all downhill from there. By the time Hartley was in place irrespective if he was a failure any half decent players were snapped up. Hartley gambled bringing in quantity rather than quality but who knows if he did actually have a decent budget ?

Yes all the signs, clues or whatever were there for all to see but trying not to believe and accept what can only be described as a disastrous prospect was foremost in most of our fans. We clutched at straws at every turn, blinded by the love of our club, in the ever increasing desperation that we were going to survive. We held that belief up to the point where we realised yesterday afternoon that 99% of the belief was gone. Even now there are some who still have the belief and will only accept failure at the point of mathematical impossibility.
The hope and belief will now be transferred to different horizons.

They’re not appalling. They are fact. This club has an inherent association with failure and has thus far accepted being used as a last option. 0 continuity was what I kept reiterating over summer, I said it would kill us in this division. You can’t consistently lose your best players (and even staff by the way… how many have left for gods sake!!) year on year and expect to do well. No other football club that operates in the EFL does this. EXCEPT Pools. We are failures. A joke football club. A club who ranked worst in fan engagement. A club that makes error after error at every single turn possible. We got lucky with Challinor, but aside from that (post IOR) what have we actually got to show for it. Naff all and they don’t give a shite.

Yet we support ever more and hope (pray) for better days.

We've been doing that since 1908. I personally have been doing that since August 1952, the day I first walked into the VIC. Do I have to do it? No but I choose to do it. If you can't bring yourself to do it, then fine go and find something or somewhere that gives you less grief. We are all aware of the history of the club, we don't need you ramming it down our throats. You'll just have to hope and pray a bit harder.

Fair play. Although I was holding strong debate re our shortcomings over the summer and was abused under your watch by Poolie1. If you accept that but not some realisation talk from myself, then fine. I’ll stop posting on the board.

No problem. Certainly an interesting and concerning mentality that one. So accepting of being shite, can we not expect more from the standards? Or is that just it… we’re Pools and we’re shite at every single level.

Poolie1 got away with murder compared to this, you are right bigdog so I think you've got something to learn here Derwent. However you are also correct to try and minimise the 'toldyouso-isms' (justified as they are) if we are to move forwards.

Call me a self appointed expert all you want - speaking purely on football - I believe I’ve given strong opinions and debate as opposed to abuse and belittling that occurre across many months by Poolie1. And yet.. he wasn’t countered in the same way was he? Some hypocrisy here I must say. If I offend people, I will stop posting - simple as that.

You do what you see fit. Poolie 1 has gone but we don't need the likes of you taking his place. You can't criticise anybody whilst trying to mirror their image. You are continuously lambasting the club, my club. your club and our club and anybody who disagrees with you gets the same treatment. If you can't handle what goes with being a Poolie then that's your problem but I am not keen on it being a problem for this forum. It's really up to you. You are welcome on here but you have to control your frustration when things go wrong and refrain from taking that frustration out on other Poolies who are equally as frustrated as you. Think about it.

The irony that you are actually saying that after witnessing the summer of abuse unfold. The fact you’ve even compared me to Poolie1 is enough for me. You keep accepting failure and I will stop posting. Not a problem, clearly don’t add value to your vanilla forum.

‘The likes of you’ - you rude rude person.

You are right Poolie1 did get away with it as you and others quite rightly pointed out at the time. He is gone so I'm not going to dwell on that but I did take notice of the leeway he had been given and did learn, which is why I am determined not to allow a repeat. Poolies are grieving at the moment and don't really need reminding of past opinions.

If you define "the club" as the people running it and making decisions then they deserved to be lambasted as they were crap. People who posted like Bigdog were dismissed, belittled and abused. Absolute fact. I dont see any of that happening right now thankfully and if Poolie1s disappearance was your doing Derwent then at least you took the right action, albeit a bit late.

You accusing someone of being rude is as equally as ironic as anything I have said.

I don't boast any credit for the disappearance of Poolie 1, nor do I claim credit for allowing him to getting away with it. Incidences which mirror that era are few and far between so the general balance, although difficult to maintain, is currently consistent, and I do take credit for that. Yesterday caused the appearance of raw nerve and that shouldn't be allowed to get out of hand. We are all in this together at the end of the day.

As someone who works within the football industry I reckon I provided solid argument and added value. If that’s not for you Derwent then you keep policing your fairy forum, if you’re happy being humiliated as the embarrassment of the football world, then also fair. In my profession I can tell you that Pools are an exception to the rule… hence my negative outlook as I’ve seen how it CAN be done.

You read thread after thread of abuse and did nowt. Yet I’m called out for ‘strong opinion’. Hmmmm

Fair enough. A very reasonable thing to say using a very reasonable tone. Wish you'd started that way cos you're right, we need to think of what we have in common, depressing as it is right now.

I can't improve anything at Pools so I don't beat myself up over it, if I could I would.
Maybe at the end of seventy years of mainly heartache I have been institutionalised. So be it.

Exactly that. A catalogue of errors and debacles that the fans can do nothing about. Lies, deceit and failure. Pools.

I define the club as the institution, the fans.
The Owners , managers and players are not the club, they’re transient visitors who come in and out with the tide a bit like the crew of a ship, if the crew performs well, the ship performs well…. But, you have to spend money on it…..

I am pretty sure that fool Poolie 1 used to be called Joel Porter and is based in Saudi or somewhere similar.

Right, olive branch here, we know what the problem is but neither you or I can resolve it, but pressure must be put on the owner to open up to the fans.
Let’s stop the bickering and start talking.

Pools are brilliant. We lost our best ever manager just for the crack cos we know it’ll come good. Relegation? Who cares. We’ll be back - I think. The Bunker is an environment for free speech… or not. See yous in a bit.

I tried.

Your opinion on the way I moderate this forum has no significance and during this episode where you allege I did nowt, not once did you make any representation either to me or to Mr I, so why bring it up now. There was a lot of tit for tat with Poolie1. You have not been called out for strong opinion as you well know. At any time during the Poolie1 era did you say anything abusive to him or against him or are you squeaky clean. I've been called many things on this forum but being too lenient is very rare indeed. I must be getting soft in my dotage.

So did I.
Pools fans aren't really ecstatic about the situation we have just been presented with but here we have someone, despite knowing how raw it is, is hell bent on ramming it down fellow Poolie's throats with his I told you so's.
You really couldn't make it up.

I,m standing with Snowy on this one:
Because I was more than willing to give Hartley and his signings time to come together.
And I had the same attitude to Curle, who on the face of it should have done a lot better than Hartley. Solely because of his understanding of the efl and being a decent defender himself.
With regard to Askey he probably is the best going forward, But don,t be surprised if he is relieved of his duties. He said himself people would lose their jobs.
As for Raj, I personally don,t blame him for the shit show yesterday, how could anybody.
The manager put out what he believed to be a team to get the job done.
And players went missing when needed the most.

Raj is the one to take full responsibility for where we find ourselves absolutely no doubt about it.
Coming onto this board and pointing fingers and saying others don,t understand the game
Or the level we WHERE at, Is condescending and shows a lack of understanding of the highest level.

Yup, the three performances as such were in sharp contrast to what went before, only the players can answer that.
Only thing with football management, you train them and they go out and act like they’re suffering from amnesia…. For managers it’s a case of your future in their hands.

If only people cared so much about behaviour in here a few months ago. It was raw back then for people who could see what was coming. No allowances were made.

I wish your olive branch had worked Snowy, credit to you. Don't give up.

It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong here. What matters is that people realise now where the problem lies. How they get to that decision is up to them.
What happened this season is horrific and the fault can only be put on one man.
Managers turned us down left, right and centre in the summer and then we missed out on target after target when we finally brought in Hartley.
If we don’t see a massive change in mindset over the summer from the powers that be we will be stuck in non league for years. This starts with ensuring Askey stays and is happy with the proposed budget.