Martin Gray

[onewayup]

MG could have sent us out of business with his spend spend attitude to gaining his ambitions,
AA knows how we work as a fan owned club.

[quakersfan]

I’ve never understood why MG is blamed for overspending, isn’t it the boards job to not allow him to do so?

I think people forget that Martin Jesper left without to much notice followed by Dave Mills on even sorter notice at the time when the club had to move out of Bishop otherwise we would have been demoted. Tempest chair of the SG stepped up which I doubt he wanted to do. The immediate thing to sort out was the deal to move to Blackwell and the dire relationship withe RC in respect to the licence. Richard Cook joined to help with that and it became quickly clear it would cost much more money than planned . Then came seat gate and the infamous forum where Gray was probably quite rightly pissed off and tried to bring move investment in and apparently there were more investors out there. Cook resigned along with Jowett leaving Tempest the sole director he then invited David Johnson to steady the ship and join the main board which IMO the best appointment the club has made. Since then the DFCSG board has grown much stronger providing additional help to the board in lots of areas whereas previously you had 1-2 people trying to cover aspect of the club.
From Jesper to the present day it hasn’t been easy I’d imagine for any of them and must have been stressful but with a larger board there are now more people to carry the load and it shows.

[Makka Pakka]

the club had to move out of Bishop otherwise we would have been demoted.

Is that correct? I don't remember that.

[JE93]

the club had to move out of Bishop otherwise we would have been demoted.

Is that correct? I don't remember that.

I think that is correct. Ground grading level B is what's required for NLN and NLS, which I think meant Bishop failed on the following grading requirements:
- 3000 capacity with ability to increase 4000
- 6 turnstiles

Bishop only had 4 turnstiles and a capacity of 2,000.

[lo36789]

the club had to move out of Bishop otherwise we would have been demoted.

Is that correct? I don't remember that.

Yes if we had until March that season to meet ground grading for National League North.

[H1987]

I think all bridges have been burned and I back AA, but I certainly don’t think Gray would do a worse job right now. I think AA is a good manager too so I hope he can turn things around. Agreed with whoever it was above who pointed out TW is a much worse option than both.

If AA went, I wouldn’t be *as* against Gray as many others clearly would. I don’t accept this is our level like some seem to. We can get up to and compete in the league above. I do, however, acknowledge that the football league is a pipe dream without a major investor coming out of nowhere.

[Darlobill]

TW brought a lot of money in with transfers when he was asked to sell players I don’t think MG or AA have come close on that level.
Hate or loathe him Singh has done a good job at Pools on and off the pitch, however football is also about a strong wind and bucket loads of luck. Roll on Saturday.

[JE93]

TW brought a lot of money in with transfers when he was asked to sell players I don’t think MG or AA have come close on that level.
Hate or loathe him Singh has done a good job at Pools on and off the pitch, however football is also about a strong wind and bucket loads of luck. Roll on Saturday.

I don't know if the gap between AA and TW is really that large in terms of transfer income you can actually attribute to them. eg, signed the player, played them and then sold them on.

MG brought in basically nothing but that was largely because he was going after experienced players for the level we were at who would have little in the way of sell on value.

TW, I'm not sure you can really claim the Ferguson, Beck & Bartlett (probably c.£40k for the lot) sales were down to him. All three were players signed for Darlo by Gray and 2/3 of them were signed by Gray for York. It would have been 3/3 had York been willing to complete the Beck deal without a medical as he was injured at the time. That leaves him with Heaton and Saunders, both were Martin Gray identified / signings but credit to Tommy he is the one who played them and got them noticed so he deserves credit there. While the headline price on the Heaton deal (£75k) sounded good. DJ came to say that we only got about half in the end largely because Heaton flopped north of the boarder, barely made an appearance and was released after a year. So by the time you add in the Saunders deal I'd be surprised if Tommy made much more than £55k out of those two signings.

AA has developed and sold Donawa and Charman which probably has brought in £55k or so which is similar to what Wright achieved from players he developed.

As for Singh doing a good job, that would depend how you classify that. He has done good things, he appointed Dave Challinor as manager and this season he's gotten them a decent cup run, but he's also made poor decisions, alienating Dave Challinor and continuing to put money into Pools via loans. All in all the way I look at pools and Singh is that they are £x million in debt to Clarence House and I would never trust him to not wake up one day and demand it back at which point without a white knight, Pools are goosed.

[shildonlad]

TW brought a lot of money in with transfers when he was asked to sell players I don’t think MG or AA have come close on that level.
Hate or loathe him Singh has done a good job at Pools on and off the pitch, however football is also about a strong wind and bucket loads of luck. Roll on Saturday.

I don't know if the gap between AA and TW is really that large in terms of transfer income you can actually attribute to them. eg, signed the player, played them and then sold them on.

MG brought in basically nothing but that was largely because he was going after experienced players for the level we were at who would have little in the way of sell on value.

TW, I'm not sure you can really claim the Ferguson, Beck & Bartlett (probably c.£40k for the lot) sales were down to him. All three were players signed for Darlo by Gray and 2/3 of them were signed by Gray for York. It would have been 3/3 had York been willing to complete the Beck deal without a medical as he was injured at the time. That leaves him with Heaton and Saunders, both were Martin Gray identified / signings but credit to Tommy he is the one who played them and got them noticed so he deserves credit there. While the headline price on the Heaton deal (£75k) sounded good. DJ came to say that we only got about half in the end largely because Heaton flopped north of the boarder, barely made an appearance and was released after a year. So by the time you add in the Saunders deal I'd be surprised if Tommy made much more than £55k out of those two signings.

AA has developed and sold Donawa and Charman which probably has brought in £55k or so which is similar to what Wright achieved from players he developed.

As for Singh doing a good job, that would depend how you classify that. He has done good things, he appointed Dave Challinor as manager and this season he's gotten them a decent cup run, but he's also made poor decisions, alienating Dave Challinor and continuing to put money into Pools via loans. All in all the way I look at pools and Singh is that they are £x million in debt to Clarence House and I would never trust him to not wake up one day and demand it back at which point without a white knight, Pools are goosed.

Singh got pools back into the league though so more chance of other investors coming on board or even selling the club. I bet pools fans would have been worried if they were still in national league. I think hes made a good call on graeme lee

[shildonlad]

TW brought a lot of money in with transfers when he was asked to sell players I don’t think MG or AA have come close on that level.
Hate or loathe him Singh has done a good job at Pools on and off the pitch, however football is also about a strong wind and bucket loads of luck. Roll on Saturday.

Without singh pools would have gone bust, not setting league 2 on fire but plenty get by at that level been bottom half

[AndyPark]

You wanna take your tongue out of Singh’s arse?

The man is a tool and one day, he’ll f*ck Pools over like did us.

[H1987]

Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that as they’re now back in the football league, they are more likely to attract a buyer if he does.

[Santino]

We are in a bit of a holding pattern whilst the work behind the scenes continues with the new ground etc. DJ said on the webinar last week that achieving promotion would be expensive for us, although we'd make it work. We all want a winning team on the pitch but the long term infrastructure must take precedent. Alun is well equipped to work under those conditions. Martin Gray achieved a lot for us but he wanted everything right here, right now (which is fair enough, his prerogative).

His bucket rattling comments also reflect very poorly on him and his understanding of who we are as a club. Some of our fans seem to constantly be chasing the next Messiah, it's time to get behind the people working hard to progress the club sustainably.

[onewayup]

Santino,I totally agree,
Stick with it we have time and it will take that time to build a strong base for the strengthening of a very stable club able to move up the league ladder ,things are being put in place to safe guard the club from becoming insolvent future proofing as best you can. That's got to be good.

[loan_star]

Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that as they’re now back in the football league, they are more likely to attract a buyer if he does.

Like Bury? Like Derby? If a club is a basket case then I think they are going to find it far harder these days to find the magical investor while they dont own the ground they are playing in.

[H1987]

Maybe, but the fact of the matter is that as they’re now back in the football league, they are more likely to attract a buyer if he does.

Like Bury? Like Derby? If a club is a basket case then I think they are going to find it far harder these days to find the magical investor while they dont own the ground they are playing in.

I said more likely, I didn't say it was a certainty. (I'm fairly sure someone will buy Derby, there's just some brinkmanship going on at the moment. Not fun for the fans though).