The Poolie Bunker

As things stand we’re a mediocre NL team and that won’t change in the foreseeable. Surely any decent manager would run a mile from any appointment and whoever is given the job won’t have any budget for new players. So next season we’ll have reduced season ticket income and falling gates. Consequently we’re in a downward spiral.

If RS walks we’re left with a tonne of debt and unless the new owners have pots of money they were still screwed.

We can force Singh out by starving him of revenue and not attending games. Even though the season tickets are paid for, the peripheral income isn’t; launch as catering, club shop etc. Singh won’t sustain the day to day costs in full and so will be forced to get what he can or lose everything.

The situation is dire but needs some bottle from the fans to recover it.

Understand the strength of feeling by some, but Phoenix Club should only be a course of last resort for me.

Sometimes though, it gets to the point where the future just looks bleak.
We seem to be on a downward slope and it’s creating apathy I’ve not encountered for a long time.

Forcing Raj out is easy to say but it appears to be very difficult to do. People are not happy that we are in the National league so would they continue to support the club several leagues below. How many phoenix clubs at our level have returned to their former glory. I'm not sure about a Phoenix club but if it becomes the only option then we will have to bite the bullet. Our advantage is we've still got use of the ground. Would the trust be able to sustain and run the Phoenix club or would we still be reliant on owners.
If the fans are successful in forcing Raj out, we'll find out soon enough..........IF.

Agree

When we were going through the whole 'TMH Ltd' then Pam and Coxhall debacle nearly a decade ago and HUST was launched, there was a chance of having to Phoenix and at the time I felt like it was the right thing to do.

If we had have done, we'd have been back in the league by now - or if not, we'd be in this division but WE would own the club, not Raj and we wouldn't have millions of pounds worth of debt to his company. We'd be looking up instead of down, and we'd have pride in our club instead of embarrassment. A far cry from where we are now.

Sure, we'd have had hurdles along the way, maybe a season or two stuck in National League North, but I'd prefer that with a positive future and the hope of a return to the league in a year or two, than being almost certain that we'll still be in this godforsaken division forevermore (at best!).

How can anyone say what would've happened if a Phoenix club had been set up years ago? Theres zero guarantees in football and the further you fall the harder it is to get back, ask any Darlo supporter.

or a more succesful one stevenage who took 34 years from re forming to enter the football league. some fans and an owner cannot wait even 2 seasons for that to happen.

Precisely what I said at the time but others were more frightened of taking it on. True we wouldn’t have experience but in that situation the goodwill and range of skills and professions we would have to call on would be huge.

To those who quote Darlo, the big difference is that we would have a ground which back then was £1500 a month.

the plus side would be that you could see a good number of local investors into the club and joining the board and appointing a chairman. bit like the old days of how clubs were run. its just the lack of patiance that the modern football fan posesses that worries me and always will. could attempt to make the club unique in some way and not a copy of others.

We might initially have a ground but we have a lease on it therefore rent would be still required, could a phoenix Pools afford the rent and the maintenance on the ground.

Would the council even agree to transferring the lease on the same (or better) terms to a Phoenix club?

There's no guarantees in life (other than one day you will die) never mind in the volatile world of football. It is so easy to paint the most desired picture of where we would be but chances are at least equal the other way.
Would our fan base have the patience to stick by the club no matter which level we were at. That is a big question. Would 3500 turn up to watch Northern Premier?? At first maybe but how long before the cry of we should be wiping the floor with this lot. Aye like we wiped the floor with that lot on Saturday.
I'm not sure I'm fully behind the club being run by a committee responsible to a fan base that has such high expectations and no patience. That committee would have to have the collective skin of a Rhino. We think we have squabbling fans now. Just imagine if things didn't go well.
PoolyPete describes this league as God awful and I agree entirely with that, then I think of being several leagues below that and shudder at the thought.

As a matter of interest can anyone remember which league were Darlo shunted down to.

Northern league Division 1 Mr D.

Thanks Mr Sussex.

It was a yes, with additional council support when I asked the question back then.

100%

With all due respect MrI, Different world now mate.

A very different world, there’s talk of a Teesside wide authority from the Government advocating bigger authorities for more efficiency, so any decisions would be made in the Boro……..no more local council….a bit like in Cleveland’s day but running everything……. and they didn’t exactly help Pools.

and how would the fans take to going to places that resemble greyfields and the problems these clubs would have with segregation. they,ll love the money from a pools visit but could they cope. not sure if pools would be accepted by that league unless it was forced upon them.

As that league stands now we would have derbies with Horden, Easington Colliery and Thornaby..........WOW.
I think initially the loyalty factor would kick in but any stutter in instant progress would have a big affect. What standard of players would we attract and would above standard players be affordable. We would of course be part time, at least until significant progress is made. Maintaining a decent fan base would be crucial.
It is a bigger gamble than people realise but if that's all that is on offer then Que Sera, Sera.

NO, is it fuck, crowds would be dismal from the start, THIS league is bad enough, some of the so called stadiums we visit now are already only slightly better than Grayfields,, a successful Pheonix club in Hartlepool is nothing but a pipedream.

Still can't get my head around why Raj wouldn't float some shares in the club, it would raise money, give shareholders some say in the running of the club, and hopefully if they were real fans would have the best interests of the club at heart. Of course they would have to be assured that the money would be used for those purposes, but say float 40%, raise a substantial amount and allow us to compete with the better teams in this league as well as money to maintain and upgrade the facilities.

My view is that it has been like this for the past 50 years apart for a few blips.We are at this level for a reason and it will continue for another 50 years.
Have a good day everyone.

You only invest in a company if you want returns like dividends etc, what returns would you receive from HUFC ?

Not everyone invests for an instant return, in effect you'd own a percentage of the clubs worth, therefore if someone came along and bought the club outright you'd be able to sell your share to them, should they offer to buy it.

Whats Pools worth, they don’t have any assets except the players, as far as buying the club outright it’s been up for sale for over 2 years no takers.

I'm well aware of that, you asked the question and I answered it, multi billionaires aren't bothered about that, they're more interested in success on the field.

Why would multi billionaires be interested in Pools they want a ‘product’ which is recognised globally, if Pools are that ‘product’ why haven’t they been queuing up Clarence Road to buy Pools ?

They obviously don't see enough "potential" in the club, why do you think they aren't queuing up?, your good at asking questions but always expect others to have the answers.

So why did millionaires buy Wrexham…?
Some people like to buy struggling clubs to turn them round, the transformation reflects well on them…anyone can buy a bang average club …turning a struggling club around reflects much better on the new owner.
That said …..most clubs never get lucky in that sense.

If Singh sold shares, any buyer of these shares would surely be chucking their money away as he would always have the whip hand, therefore being in control/causing bad feeling/sacking managers etc.

I don’t know about a Phoenix club, but the way things are going we may not have any club at all at this rate.

he,d only put shares up for sale and get interested party,s to invest as long as they had no say in running the club. as for the club being up for sale its like those ads on ebay that have been on for months on end. its not that what they are selling is bad its just its totally overpriced. nobody becomes rich by paying well over the odds for anything.