The Poolie Bunker

Apart from the obvious;

Sweet wrappers.
Soiled toilet paper.
Wrappers for salad vegetables.

Receipts from the Pound Shop!!!!

This question is too taxing for me.

What about the wrappers that are around cardboard packets that are already wrapping up whats inside.

Shurrup....he hasn't said that surely!?!?

Someone on Facebook saying he knows who the trouble makers on social media are.

You've been warned

Who conducted the interview makes Loughlin look like Paxman

If by secret he means those of us who keep an eye on financial going son and irrelevance like being would up the it ain't no secret who is who.

What's the warning like? Someone going to give them a pint of piss at half time instead of a carling? If they're in the Mill House it'll probably taste better.

I think they'll be more bothered about the fact their football club is apparently being bullied by Betty in the admin department at HMRC. Absolutely not on.

Aye, was taking the piss.

It's in that Tees interview apparently. Haven't given it a listen but something along the lines of Coxall knowing who the trouble makers are and that it's scaremongering.

Reminds me of the interview with tariq aziz? or one of saddams deputies during the Iraq war around 2003. You could hear gunfire all around him, explosions galore and he continued to deny that the us and uk forces were about to take Baghdad.
And some Iraqis still believed it...
Crackers.

Coxall called them winding up orders rather than just petitions.

I still like the bloke but that's probably the first time iv been disappointed with his comments to be honest.

But it leads back to what Dave Jones called him - 'a little naive'

I like the bloke too. He's charming, affable and convincing. Different to Uncle Ken certainly.

Likewise I'm a bit concerned about the tone of some of his comments, especially the light-hearted piss-taking (which it is) of the Winding-Up Orders.

A blind man on a galloping horse can see that WHATEVER they entail, and WHENEVER they were paid,they certainly aren't good news for the club. How could they be?

Personally I don't think they are a laughing matter but there's plenty that do so we've got to believe that everythings fine.

If I heard him right I am sure I heard him say that pools were £40m in debt when he took over and are now more or less self sufficient.

You have to say he has done a remarkable job to do that in 18 months.

Remarkable.

The bit that did confuse me though was the capture of dave jones.

He said that the level of interest and applicables was unreal and top quality.

Yet we all knew jones had the job a fortnight before before hignett was sacked.

So unless he put an advert out whilst hignett was still in the job how could all that happen?

There is probably a very simple explanation I am sure.

I heard it as "14 Million", but that's equally remarkable.

Maybe it was £14M. Regardless though the accounts will make fascinating reading.

Bit I found most worrying was when he said that winding up orders are just somebody trying to bully you and then you pay it a couple of days later so they look like a 'div'. He really seems to believe that building yourself a bad reputation with HMRC is an OK way for a business to go on.

He is full of charm/guff but I'd have been a lot more convinced if he'd been asked and then answered detailed questions. How could the presenter/broadcast journalist accept what was said about winding up orders without asking why one was still outstanding? What about the borrowing?

Instead there was no detail, just assurances and jovial dismissal of the things he was actually asked about. To be honest that all makes me more convinced that Gary is an absolute master of bullshit. Doesn't mean he is necessarily up to no good but I wouldn't trust him on anything much.

No mention of the court fees of the thick end of 2k each time either.

To be fair, if I was a shareholder I'm not sure I would be happy with my chairman telling a local radio presenter the ins and outs of the financial goings on in my company.

I think the level of detail some people are demanding is vastly unrealistic. Yesterday somebody wanted to know the interest rate of a loan. Why on gods little planet would somebody disclose that to a stranger?

I've always had this thing about fans insisting a club is 'there's', and the point can be argued for hours. But a business is the property of it's shareholders surely, not it's customers. If the shareholders were happy to bankroll the club, the supporters are not important. Clearly they are, as we must work together for a common goal of success on the pitch.

Just because you pay your £18 a fortnight, you are not entitled to know the finest details of the runnings of the club, if you want that, buy shares.

See I'm not sure if you are, you are a customer, not a shareholder.

You choose to shop at Victoria Park, if you don't like what the owners of the shop are doing, you can shop at the Riverside Stadium instead.

I appreciate I'm simplifying this quite a lot.

At the minute a lot of folk are understandably impressed by the fact that Coxall has brought in Jones and co. to run the playing side. That package is a long way from the cheapest option (giving the job to Sam Collins with Rob Jones as assistant) that cynics were expecting.

Is it all smoke and mirrors from Coxall? Possibly. I still expect Nathan Thomas to be sold to pay a few bills before the end of the month, but that might not happen either. For now, it's got to be a case of "give 'em enough rope..."

The being paid late was once by 1 day according to Coxall. Are you aware of it being more than this?

I like the way this season has turned into a transission season after telling a fellow poolie in pre season that Hartlepool United were going to have there best season ever.

He has got good salesmans crack like.
But cult status only arrives after promotion.

No fans = No income = No club.

The same could be said about almost any business.

I love the supermarket analogy...

So, I tell Tesco I want to buy 200 tins of beans, spread across a year. They say sure, here's the price... £100

After I've had 5 tins of beans Tesco change the beans to super noodles. I hate super noodles. Now if I ask them why there's been a change is that any of my business? Of course it is. I can shop elsewhere of course but they have my £100 and I want my fucking beans.

And as ludicrous as that sounds it's a great example of why supermarket analogies don't work with football clubs. You just can't compare beans to super noodles.

I love beans me.

Branston or Heinz?

Harry Potter, every time.

A couple of posts in this thread show how much we have been brainwashed since the Premier League to think of football in term of business and money. Clubs always needed to be funded but they represented part of the culture of the local community and a focal point for that community. I think even up until the 90's that was. Ore or less the case.

Clubs of course have always been financed but it tended to be by benefactors not businessmen. It's a shame football has lost its soul to money, marketing and shareholders like everything else in life

I am under the impression that a few people who are on the concerned side know a lot more detail than they are allowed to put on here, and can't post it either for reaons of libel or because people could lose their jobs.

We are all shareholders of the club and certainly the Trust is a legal shareholder. We are shareholders in the heart and soul of the thing. We have invested years, in fact decades into it and many thousands of pounds travelling the length of this island to stand on cold wet mudbanks at the likes of Halifax on a cold winters night. We have endured many many extremely poor football matches because once in a while a chink of light appears and we live in eternal hope. The supermarket analogy doesn't work because we are a captive market. We can't choose Sainsbury's instead of Asda and we can't go to Lidl because its a couple of quid cheaper.

JPNG are the current custodians of the limited company, nothing more. If they went into administration we would still be here to pick up the pieces and teh club would rise again much like our neighbours did. You can't judge a football club by normal business practices, this is precisely what is wrong with the game and why so many have given up on it. It's become too cynical and too often a vehicle for a quick profit.

As soon as I seen a property developer involved I got really worried. Hereford, Wrexham, Blackpool, Millwall, Wimbledon and many more.

How familiar does this sound? its from Hansard and forms part of a parliamentary debate:



Ask yourself why a property developer would want to get involved with Pools other than to make a profit? This is my major worry.

Sounds like just a bit of paper Mr I. A piece of paper where the names could be changed for names closer to home and possibly make up a tea boys next article.

According to GC on Tees last night then its the likes of Mr I, Chip and ADG who should have no grounds for concern at all. They are simply a little bit "scared and worried" about the situation and it's this fear that causes them to get things wrong and make his life difficult. Man up you three...........you're concerns obviously have no basis in fact. He's a charismatic cheeky chappy with a good supply of one-liners so therefore he must be right.

It was I that said I wanted to know the loan amount, interest rate, monthly payments etc in the thread I created. I am sure many other people want to know.
"None of our business", someone said in this thread!

IT IS OUR BLOODY BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!

If or rather when this lot walk away from OUR club, it will be the supporters left to pick up the pieces!!!
It is HUFC that is being saddled with the debt, not JPNG!
Hence the reason why we need to know!

HUFC IS A FOOTBALL CLUB!!!

Not a front for "naive" businessmen to use as a front to dabble in the property game!


Can we not elect a supporter onto the board?
How much would it take to get someone who is a true fan of the club on the board?
How do you become a shareholder? What would it cost? How could the trust run the football club?
Could we not put in a bid to buy the club? That way we would get to see the books?
What would it take?

I always liked David Conns articles.

If GC was from Hartlepool and had been a lifelong fan it still wouldn't be plausible

I'm not saying I'm right here, it's just my opinion.

But it's regularly brought out that a football club belongs to it's fans, if anybody can explain that to me and it wasn't just because they've followed them for years and will be here long after the current OWNERS of the football club, then fair enough. But I've yet to see that.

Like it or not, a football club is a registered business, it is owned by it's shareholders. There is an option other than Hartlepool United Football Club for all of us, we are not forced to attend Pools. We are a town of one professional club, but not just one club, if you don't like Pools, whats wrong with supporting Hartlepool FC?

Lower league clubs are being squeezed by the Premier League, lower league clubs need to be either ran extremely well, or funded, the good old days are not coming back.

Hell in a hand cart I tell thee, hell in a hand cart.

Whole Game Solution!

a) not without the OWNERS permission
b) you need to find a shareholder to purchase shares from
c) Of course 'we' could. But you'd need millions to do that
d) see c, millions of pounds, if not for the purchase, but for the infrastructure and running costs.

It's perfectly doable, see many other supporters trust owned and ran clubs who are higher up the pyramid than us. JOIN THE TRUST, EVERYBODY.

Right Mr Ptbap, I'll have a go.

If you simply accept that the current political and economic ideology is all that ever existed and all that ever will then it is pretty hard to fault your argument. Accept that financial measures of value and legal ownership are the only things that matter and everything you say is true.

But if that is the case why is it possible to get and AVC on a football ground? You can't get one on a branch of Asda. The fact that you can get an AVC is a legal acknowledgement that football clubs and the grounds they need play a community role, creating identity and civic pride, that goes way beyond anything 'normal' businesses can usually offer. Also the way that anyone can become part of a club just by turning up to watch adds to social cohesion - even Monkeybutt has been made welcome at Pools despite his love of warm milk and abiding passion for Manchester United.

So, even if it isn't a normal business does any of that make it our club? I think it does in a wider moral sense. If tens of thousands of people invest their time, passion and money into a shared project, sometimes over generations, it is morally wrong that somebody with enough cash can simply declare themselves the owner. I know they're legally entitled to do that but I'm under no obligation to respect them unless they respect that form of wider ownership that also exists. If we think they might be using their legal ownership to behave in a way that puts our moral ownership at risk we have every right to ask questions, protest and do anything else reasonable to stop them.

Of course some owners do respect what a club is - look at Harold Hornsey and what he did for Pools. Others try to but get it hideously wrong in the end, maybe Gary Gibson would fit in this category but I might be being a bit too generous there. Others just exploit football clubs in the same way asset strippers might go for an ailing airline, a fleet of ferries or a steelworks. Use the lines of credit and status to gamble the clubs' futures on money making schemes involving housing projects, concert venues, hotels and so on.

Finally, we can't shop around. Unlike a lot of Pools fans I'll happily watch Boro, Sunderland or Newcastle as long as it doesn't clash with a Pools match. I watch Toulouse as well because they're a good bit handier for where I live. I enjoy these matches but none in any way compare to going to Pools. That is all wrapped up in family and friends, some long dead. Once the last of my older relatives who live in the town are gone I'll still be able to go home because that is how I think of Pools. I can't buy that anywhere else.

Don't know if any of that convinces you Ptbap but surely there is a bit of food for thought? Maybe the issue is wider than who has their name on the most share certificates?

Yes, plenty of food for thought. But morals over legality is a tricky one. I hear (read) what you are saying, but chest thumping about interest rate of loans etc is getting towards the Newcastle fans Cockney mafia rubbish.

Perhaps football clubs should be registered charities?!

Like I said, I don't know if I'm right, I don't know if I'm wrong, but there is already case studies of how fans have got involved in 'their' own club and then successfully become the custodians of their own destiny! We should be studying them, dropping the bits that didn't work, and get on with it, less tub thumping and multiple fan groups.

Divided we fall!

That is exactly my issue with fan owned argument and has been for a long time.

It's constantly about fundraising exactly like a chairity. Take Darlo for example who still have bucket collections at every home game and even at Evostick and Conference North level lost an eye watering amount of cash last year. It's never ending constantly down to fans to dip into their pockets time after time. I'm not sure I have much stomach for that personally.

A lot more money is floating about the game these days and gradually more is filtering down to our level. We are a big enough Town and an established enough club to have a successful team in the Lower leagues and why not the second tier. I don't know where the money is going or coming from or what the future holds but we are hearing some ambition from the chairman. Maybe let's give him time to prove people wrong as I'm sure we all want him to do that?

Was about to reply along the same lines. What happened to Darlo was just about the worst case scenario that could happen to any club. I can't help thinking that the severe treatment they got from the football authorities was linked to the cavalier approach that a series of owners took to debt, taxes and so on. They understood that the new club was just the old club really and so much bad stuff had gone on with repeated administrations and so on that they felt they had to be as harsh as possible. Not fair on the fans but understandable.

Pools won a lot of re-election campaigns and that was partly because they were thought of as a decent, respectable club that tried hard to keep it's house in order even though it wasn't always easy. Maybe Gary Coxall should think about that before he calls HMRC divs on radio again. Reputation counts if you ever need to ask them for a bit of leeway.

"With all of these clubs that crash the ground is normally the critical factor. Once that falls into the hands of property developers, your football club is seriously in danger."

and is that now the case with Pools, that danger is a possibility?

The bit I find worrying is that the most of the fans with the concerns are some of the more intelligent fans (Basing intelligence on message board posts like which may not be the best method) and who have experience or knowledge of business practices etc.

If you couldnt put a coherent sentence together or spell your own name than you could easily be ignored.

I think that it is....I can't think of any good outcome from all this at all!!!!

I agree Darlo probably isn't the best example to give.

I'd still have concerns about it working here though if the last months are anything to go by.

I think the football league to some extent has got its house in order in recent times it's long time since a club went into administration when it seemed to be one or two in the bottom two leagues every season at one point. Like I said with more money filtering down now it is possible for fan owned clubs to do alright in the bottom two divisions but I just don't see a club like Pools or Exeters ceiling being very high within that. Exeter are very settled and have a manager who's been there years yet bumble about in the middle and bottom end of the fourth division year after year and apparently a few years ago were saved from being in the clarts again by a favourable FA Cup draw.

What I would like to see introduced is that all Football League clubs are at least part owned by supporters trusts who have elected members on the clubs board who have full disclosure on everything that is going on at the club. This will help keep asset strippers and property developers away and encourage owners and investors who have the best interests of the club at heart.

I would happily accept all that Gary Coxall says and promises if the ownership of the ground was off the agenda. The worst that could then happen is that we go into administration after a good go at getting up the league. However, almost from day one he has been talking about purchasing the ground. We have a number of charges against assets already and had the ground been owned then that would have been mortgaged too. I'm a lot more comfortable with it being owned by the council and at an annual rent of £18'000, (find me another league ground at £1500 a month) why would you want to own it?

I do understand his point, albeit in a ham fisted way, about stretching out payment terms to HMRC. The downside of a WUP being that it's nearly two grand of court costs and destruction of your credit rating. This in itself makes finance difficult to get and very expensive.

To me there are too many parts that don't add up. This may well be down to a lack of full facts but when you throw in characters like Goldberg it all gets a bit sniffy.

Agree 100% regarding the ground.

Out of interest though, Ken Hodcroft wasn't a property developer or asset stripper so why did he want IOR to buy the ground, purely to save rent each year (which is next to nothing) or to use it as an asset to secure funds to develop it and the surrounding areas? Which is exactly what Coxhall is purporting to be doing. It was Hodcrofts main reason/excuse/diversion tactic for the stagnation of the club, because the council would not give or sell him the ground and ultimately why have gave up trying.

Who knows. For one reason or another the council wouldn't sell or give as was Ken's preference. Last I heard the council wanted £675'000 for it. I hope that they don't sell this time although 675k would be tempting to them and we'd get vacuous statements about covenants.

The town plan is quite revealing by the way.