The Poolie Bunker

Who do you think is the biggest villain in Pools’ history? Have included some names below from modern times but would like to hear everyone else’s thoughts.

Martin Scott - Was assistant under Neale Cooper during our most successful period. Ended up taking over from Cooper right at the end of the season with rumours of some backstabbing, left before end of the 05-06 season but pretty much relegated us and effectively ruined the career of our greatest homegrown player (A.Boyd).

Gary Coxall (JPNG) - took over the club in 2015 after the ‘great escape’ season, nearly bankrupted it, and oversaw our relegation from the Football League for the first time in our history.

Raj Singh - the saviour of the club, taking over during the rocky period of Coxall and the Pam Duxbury regime. Oversaw the hiring of Dave Challinor and our greatest moment probably since the ‘great escape’, ended up wearing out his welcome with a refusal to back Challinor, poor hire and fire approach following Challinor, and generally being an arrogant, unlikable person which ruined all positive momentum we had built.

Wildcard - Luke James - Betrayed us not once but twice. First handed in multiple transfer requests and refused to train to force through a move to Peterborough. Came crawling back not once, but twice when his career was in the gutter, before biffing us off again. Now plays at Morpeth at the semi-pro level. To make it worse he was cack more often than not.

Garry Gibson can be added to that list.

I think we all probably have our personal dislikes. Mine's Gary Gibson for hiding his financial mismanagement with bullshit till it was too late. Pools were 4th in the 3rd tier and had just beat Crystal Palace in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup when the crap hit the fan. Took nearly a decade to recover.

We all know why Scotty is a hate figure but it shouldn't be forgotten that Pools had 16 games of the season left when he was sacked. IOR made a really poor decision to replace him with Paul Stephenson as caretaker and Pools only won 1 of their last 11 games.
Not sure how he 'ruined' Boydie either. He got a bruised bone early in the season and then had blood poisoning. Was Scotty the physio too? And we still flogged Boyd for half a million at the end of the season...

Coxall were an unmitigated disaster but IOR were desperate to sell by that point and Coxberg were the only takers after the Monkey Hangers Ltd fiasco. Got to wonder how long IOR would have carried on funding the club if they hadn't been able to find someone else to take Pools off their hands for nowt.

Boydie was a great home grown talent but I would question the tag greatest when you consider Wattie Moore, Kenny Johnson. the Linighans, John McGovern etc.

You missed the real villain - Peter Goldberg. Gary Coxhall was a useful idiot for the real hooded claw.

He’s been a director of 60 companies of which 59 are dissolved. The one active one is currently going into liquidation

I thought the story was that Scott kept Boyd on even though he was injured? If not the case I retract that. He’s still a massive C U Next Tuesday for turning his back on the man with the gleaming head, Mr Neale Cooper. If Boyd hadn’t got injured who knows what might have happened. Maybe we could’ve seen a strike force of Rooney and Boyd, or Messi and Boyd.

On Cockhall, the bloke nearly bankrupted us, unforgivable. A strike against IOR for selling to him! Say what you will about Raj (and I’ve said plenty) it seems as if he’s sold to a bloke who’s serious about running the club properly.

Peter Goldberg just sounds like a Bond villain. Wasn’t even aware of his existence.

Mr. Derwent if we had saw Boydy injury free he could’ve been playing alongside Rooney, Messi, Ronaldo, any of that calibre. The may he moved and grooved with that bag of air was only bettered by a guy by the name of Ronaldinho in the mid 2000s.

I don’t want to dig it all up again but the biggest knife in Neale Coopers back had the name Humphreys on it not Scott.

Is Montrose in Hartlepool?

Leaving aside the one club men like Watty Moore (before my time) the real Pools greats were players who showed they could cut it at a much higher level of football. People like McGovern (Derby), Andy Linighan (Arsenal) and Keith Houchen (Coventry).
Boyd didn't make the grade at Luton and neither did Joe Allon at Chelsea.

I can give Gibson some slack for that brilliant promotion season and the subsequent season till it went tits up …..but it was an oasis period for Poolies in a desert of despair between our first promotion and Harold Hornsey taking over which were mostly wilderness years of survival.

Scotty….I could say a lot of things, but I’d never stop writing…..good riddance.

The assorted vultures who turned up to pick at the bones of the club after IOR’s Dunkirk departure and the infuriating realisation we were being picked clean and left on the side of the road of league football.
Like most clubs we’ve been let down by piss poor managers who couldn’t manage a bowel movement, players who had a burning, devoted loyalty to their own self interest and my pet hate being Cleveland County Council who at times appeared to be trying to close the Vic with their demands..while kissing the Boro’s arse arse during the building of their new stadium.

Aye, it’s been a funny old time supporting Pools down the wilderness years.

trouble is to be a villain you have to do things on purpose with a reason for it. you can have a list a mile long who have cocked things up at pools but not sure how many did it by either accident or incomitance which is different.

No one mentioned Vince Barker yet ...? Over the years my opinion on him has mellowed, now I just see him as a local business man trying his best. At the time though there was huge animosity towards him, anyone remember when he tried to move us to Scarborough? I also remember the story about us selling a player (possibly Poskett) and a week later he had a brand new combine harvester we had some seriously grim times under him.

Ha, I will assume you know it's not but the reason I included the lad from Montrose is simply the fact that he made his debut for Pools whilst still at school so therefore, in my opinion, that makes him (in football terms) home grown. It is your prerogative to agree or not. ( Smartarse)

That is your opinion and I agree and have said that Boyd was a great home grown talent but the two most important words in your claim are IF and COULD'VE. I would hazard a guess that those two words could have been tagged to thousands of players who, for one reason or another, didn't fulfil their potential.
My favourite player as from 1952 , when I first started watching Pools, is Tommy McGuigan (RIP), but he wasn't home grown so is not included. I class home grown as starting at Pools as a youngster and Tommy started his career playing in the Scottish leagues.

How about H'Angus, promised free bananas and did not keep his promise.

I think the biggest villains in Pools history were the players who took bribes to lose matches. One of them did a spell in jail.

Full details here:


https://bettingscandal.carrd.co/

or you could say they were lucky to be bribed. its hard to imagine many players since that efl relegation side obtaining money to lose a game on purpose. its one thing they were good at anyway.

Ken Thomson according to that article, way before my time but was at the club the 62/63 season in which he made 29 appearances and we won only 7 games that season. I did notice around that time he played with a colourful forward called Johnny Edgar, he was a prolific scorer, he bagged 31 goals in 76 games for us, scored a hat-trick for Gillingham against us in 1958 aged 22, and famously scored a hat-trick in only six minutes playing for York City against Accrington in 1959. How did we manage to pick him up?

In the late fifties we were giving the likes of Man Utd and Chelsea a run for their money and my mate Tommy McGuigan was ripping defences apart with his passing. He knew where the onion bag was as well. We had a football team in those days. A new manager came in ( his name escapes me) and decided to rip up that team sheet and the decline started. I remember a Mail reporter writing "I don't know what the club have to do to get the people of Hartlepool to come to the Vic" He was referring to a crowd of "only" 11000. Now wouldn't that be nice.

It would have been either Ray Middleton or Bill Robinson methinks.

It was worth it to see Mandelson’s face at the count….who confidently assumed it was a walkover for his chosen candidate

Wasn't the promise "free bananas for kids"? I thought there was a story of him following it up by delivering boxes of banana sweets to schools, so technically he delivered didn't he?