It?s AGM time down at Victoria Park and the chairman?s statement has been released. Please note all figures are to the end of December 2004 and do not take into account Pools run to the play off final, eight minutes from the Championship, sigh!
Overall turn over increased from £2.2 million to £2.8 million, mainly due to increased gate receipts and commercial sales. With the new wage capping now in place Pools players wage bill actually dropped from £1.75 million to £1.69 million. This still appears to be a huge amount for a club of our size, it would be interesting to compare it with similar sized clubs.
Overall the club made a loss of £184,000 compared to the previous year when a loss of £531,000 was recorded. However the statement goes on to say that the club is still very reliant on our owners Increased Oil Recovery who have now provided £5.4 million of funding!
The statement is nothing out of the ordinary and to be honest there is very little to report on once the figures are out of the way. Chairman Ken Hodcroft goes on to say the club are fully supportive of the current management team and that they see no reason why this season cannot end ?successfully? like the previous five seasons have. I particularly liked this sentence though?.
“We believe we are in a position to remain in League One yet another season which will be another Club record. Our philosophy to the Team Management and players remains the same – enjoy what you are doing, don’t embarrass the Club or owners and don’t get relegated.”
I agree with all of it, please don?t get relegated Pools, nice optimistic outlook there! I think one thing must be added to this article, despite the almost constant stream of criticism from the letters page in the Hartlepool Mail, it should be noted that the large majority of Pools fans are extremely happy with the way IOR run our football club. We have never had a sustained period of relative success like the one we are having now and I firmly believe that IOR and our success go hand in hand.
To read the chairman’s statement in full you will need to visit the official Pools website and be a registered member of the site.
