Turner - questions

By Clarence Rode
March 31 2009

Hartlepool United caretaker manager Chris Turner has invited fans to use the club website to ask him questions about the team or about the club as a whole. Hopefully, he will be prepared for a few dodgy ones as fans take the opportunity to ask him directly the sort of questions they have been asking each other as the team’s slide down the League One table gathered pace in recent weeks. Presumably, the move comes in response to unrest amongst supporters caused by recent form, and from a positive point of view at least the club has shown itself willing to listen to the concerns of fans.
Turner has said he wants to be part of a club where averybo0dy is together – fans as well as players and other staff.
At the moment, that is not the case.
Many fans have been concerned for years about the club’s poor PR, unhappy with the way many topics concerning the playing side and off-the-pitch activities like the proposed purchase of Victoria Park are kept quiet.
If Turner is making a move to change that situation, that would be a terrific step in the right direction. Nobody can expect the club to make everything public, but if it wants to keep the fans onside then it must know that it needs to keep them informed.
Of course there is always unrest when a team is not doing well. When Pools are winning, everybody is happy and nobody cares too much about what is going on behind the scenes.
But while Pools have a press office with two full-time staff and managers and players who have always apparently been willing to talk to the media – even when they’ve lost badly – keeping the fans informed appears to be another matter.
For instance, when did we last get an update on the Ground purchase?
If anybody wants any suggestions for questions for Chris, how about asking why Tony Sweeney has been wasted at right-back most of the season, why the club didn’t tell us it had no money to spend last summer, why is Arran Lee-Barrett better than Jan Budtz (bet he doesn’t answer that one), why Danny Wilson left? in fact, we'd also like to know the club's angle on the depatures of Mike Newell and Neale Cooper.
But we'll never hear them.

Questions can be posed here.