IT’S coming up ten years since Hartlepool United reached their pinnacle – when they were eight minutes from promotion to the Championship. 
After sacking Paul Murray on Saturday, Pools are managerless and seeking their third boss of the season. Dumped out of the FA Cup by Blyth Spartans, Pools are bottom of the league and six points from safety. There’s an awful lot of ill-feeling on the terraces and in the town with their current plight, following Friday’s defeat. It’s a desperate situation, the sort it seemed had been consigned to the history. The old Hartlepool did this, not the current model. 
Chairman Ken Hodcroft has often listed three rules for the club and its employees: Enjoy the work you are doing, don’t embarrass yourself or the club and don’t get relegated. 
Those commandments are no longer being adhered to. 
No-one is enjoying watching Pools right now, the club has been embarrassed on the pitch all too often this season, none more so than on Friday, and relegation (a second in three years) beckons. 
Behind the scenes and experienced staff are opting to leave the club, with replacements not forthcoming. The club has cancelled this year’s AGM, citing money saving measures. It’s times like this when questions need answering not shunted away. Paul Murray’s sharp exit was announced in a tame three paragraph statement. The nature of the appointment and sacking should not be brushed aside. 
But why are Pools in such a state of flux overall? 


Bad managerial decisions
SINCE taking over in 1997, the owners have made 11 managerial appointments, with the most successful first time around – Chris Turner and Neale Cooper – having two spells in charge. 
After the exit of Mick Wadsworth in 2011, they are now seeking an unprecedented fifth permanent boss in three years. 
When Danny Wilson was dumped in December 2008, Pools were a well-established League One club, sitting 13th. 
Until Colin Cooper’s appointment in May 2013, Pools had not operated with someone in charge with the title of manager. Turner was the director of sport, Wadsworth, Neale Cooper and John Hughes head coaches. 
Wadsworth was the reluctant boss, happy to get his hands dirty on the training ground rather than deal in transfers and the management side.
Neale Cooper should not have returned. His first spell was majestic, his second disastrous and he departed a broken man with a fractured dressing room. 
They had Phil Brown ready and waiting until the club moved the goalposts and he walked away.
Hughes brought some improvement, albeit from a very low base. Many felt he was harshly sacked, but his relationship with the hierarchy who call the shots had broken down and the players weren’t convinced by his talk. 
Colin Cooper was the right man for the job at the time. However, his notion of turning Pools into a club of talent from other academies was flawed. League Two is not the place for that, and he left Pools in a desperate state in October, presiding over a disastrous start. 
Was Paul Murray the right choice? No-one will ever know. He had seven games, but failed to lift the squad or get a reaction from the players in his 44 days. 
And now for the next appointment. 
The chairman takes his time, going through an established process. There’s no leeway to do that this time and if he has done it lately it hasn’t worked. A quick and experienced appointment is essential. They cannot afford to get this one wrong. 
When Pools were heading out the league in December 1989, Garry Gibson appointed Cyril Knowles, who ruled by fear and shook the squad into action. The same is needed now. 
 

Flawed transfer policy
How many players Pools have signed in recent years have been a success? The amount of disappointments far outweighs those who have made any mark. With the constant change in manager, comes a constant change in transfer outlook and players. 
Wadsworth signed Nobby Solano, who helped shift £100 season tickets, but lasted only 16 games, went AWOL and left in messy circumstances. The striker Wadsworth wanted was Colin Nish – targetman and scorer he wasn’t.
Neale Cooper got Steve Howard and Simon Walton as his big summer recruits. The former never looked like the player he should have been, neither ever looked fit, and the latter’s influence was poor, with his outlook and attitude was a source of consternation.
Colin Cooper claimed the squad was in place when he took over, the retained list had been done in the absence of a manager after Hughes went. His big success was the loan signing of Christian Burgess. When he had the chance to shape things this summer, it was a disaster. 
Matthew Bates and Stuart Parnaby were, he said, from his “A list”. Both have suffered horrendously with injuries and Cooper, a former team-mate and coach of both, should not have wasted a large chunk of the budget on them.
Parnaby has played poorly five times and his season is already over. Bates has never looked comfortable. 
Cooper kept going back to Boro for young recruits and, after a while, it became all too repetitive: David Atkinson anyone? 
The squad he left behind was as weak as ever. 
Credit to the chairman for allowing Murray to make eight signings, but again their impact has been minimal. They’ve not inspired or improved the situation when a quick lift was needed. 
Sam Collins said recently that “80 per cent are trying, caring”. The 20 per cent who don’t should walk away now. 
 

Lack of investment
In the early days of their tenure, Increased Oil Recovery could do little wrong. From the moment they backed Turner with the captures of Gary Jones and Chris Freestone, at a layout of almost £200,000, they were competitive in the transfer market.
The £40,000 spent on Mark Tinkler from Southend in 2001 was, pound for pound, the best money the club has ever spent. What Turner wanted, Turner got. 
Eifion Williams, Darrell Clarke and Micky Nelson all came for fees. All gave great service.
When Pools needed a push to get promoted in 2006/7, Danny Wilson shelled out nigh-on £100,000 on Richard Barker. A resounding success. 
In 2009, Turner went to Leyton Orient and paid £60,000 to get Adam Boyd back. It didn’t work out and was the last significant transfer fee the club paid. 
Granted there’s fees and costs involved in signing any player, but Pools are no longer competitive in the transfer market. 
IOR have never handed a manager a set budget to spend. If a manager wants a player, the deal is weighed up on merit. 
Hodcroft, at the time of the world economic crisis, often cited the credit crunch for the reason for belt-tightening. While other clubs and businesses are competitive in the transfer market, Pools no longer are. 
With their Football League status in grave doubt, it’s time in January for some funds. 
Financial Fair Play rules don’t seem to affect other clubs as much as it does Pools and, with hefty fees in for Jack Baldwin and Luke James (in fairness, it’s staggered payments and not up front), the next manager must have the reins eased off. 
 

Victoria Park and Hartlepool Borough Council
Owning the ground – Hartlepool United FC currently leases it from the council – has long been a stated objective of IOR. 
In 2009, Hodcroft was hopeful of a deal. Pools had previously bid around £300,000, yet in 2010 they bid £50,000. 
Five years later and the chances of it happening seem as remote as ever. But why? Surely owning the ground, investing in Victoria Park and the club is for the benefit of all instead of this current situation. 
The chairman has occasionally used his column in the match programme as a platform to get his thoughts across, openly criticising the council. 
At the 2010 AGM, he claimed the council’s refusal to sell and treatment of the club and owners “beggared belief”. 
He added: “The owners have invested millions into this football club; the council has done nothing to help.
“Consequently, unless the council recognises its failings and the consequences of its actions and look realistically at what the club and owners require and are trying to achieve – for the benefit of the town – the owners will need to carefully evaluate the economic model for the future of the club.
“If financial support is withdrawn from the owners then the club will disappear from League One (and possibly beyond) and the council will have to answer to the townspeople/businesses and the people who elected them.”
The warning was there. Have IOR followed up their threat? 
In October, Hodcroft’s programme piece claimed: “HBC are determined to do everything in their power to ensure that this club fails.
“The lack of support to allow the club to buy the land has been followed by their latest second letter threatening to implement rent increases going back to 2002.
“Let’s be frank, the owners of this club will not stand much more of the complete failure of HBC to support this club which brings in annual revenue of £5m into the town of Hartlepool.’’
Councillor Robbie Payne responded: “Mr Hodcroft’s comments are totally unwarranted and completely without foundation – and they do him no credit at all.
“The Council has been willing to negotiate the sale of Victoria Park for a long time now, but IOR has consistently failed to table an acceptable offer.
“The Council’s position has not changed, however, in that our door is always open and we remain willing to re-open negotiations for the sale of Victoria Park – but only if IOR are prepared to adopt a realistic approach.
“For negotiations to resume, IOR must make an acceptable offer and agree to any sale agreement including a clause stipulating that Victoria Park should only ever be used for football purposes.”
The Mill House Masterplan, which would have seen the whole area around Victoria Park transformed, has gone cold. Pools could have taken control of the ground as part of that deal.
Hodcroft has also called on the town’s MP Iain Wright, a Pools season ticket holder, for his comments, but there has been no direct approach made for his input. 
So perhaps, instead of this uneasy truce and stand-off, why can’t the club try and engineer some real debate with the council and MP and reopen talks. The current impasse does no-one any good.
Surely it’s worth trying to rescue the future of the town’s football club.