Robbie Stelling and Rich Mennear react to news that Raj Singh has stepped down as Hartlepool United chairman
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00:00Manchester Singers also confirmed that they'll fund the club until the end of the season,
00:03so the clock is ticking, with obviously the end of the National World Season coming around
00:07pretty sharpish in less than two months or so.
00:09Robbie, how's your week been and how do you assess the news?
00:13Eventful, Rich, it has to be said.
00:16It's never boring covering Hartlepool United, that's for certain.
00:21In one sense it was a massive surprise, wasn't it?
00:23I don't think anyone really expected the announcement, the timing of it, it all seemed really sudden.
00:29But I suppose in another regard, we shouldn't be altogether shocked because, as you said,
00:36the club has been up for sale since April 2023 when pools were relegated.
00:42There was that decisive game at home to Crawley at the end of the season when fans voiced
00:49their discontent at chairman and owner Raj Singh and he responded by putting the club up for sale.
00:56At times it felt a bit like tit-for-tat more than anything.
00:59I think a lot of people would question to what extent Singh has genuinely been serious
01:04about selling the club.
01:06Obviously in his statement, which was really bullish, wasn't it?
01:09He said that personal abuse and the misrepresentation of information had made his position untenable.
01:18He criticised supporters groups.
01:21He suggested that previous prospective buyers have been time wasters.
01:26So clearly there is an admission that there has been interest in the last couple of years,
01:31but obviously Singh has not been satisfied by that.
01:35The fact that he's stepped down as chairman in quite a public way suggests to me that
01:41this is significant.
01:43In some ways it feels like we've been here before, particularly in the months after Singh
01:47first put the club up for sale.
01:52But this feels slightly different.
01:54I think given the public nature of the statement and the resignation, it feels more to me like
02:01Singh is genuinely serious about selling the club than probably at any stage in the last
02:06couple of years.
02:08As you said, it's been another really disappointing season on the pitch.
02:13The results have been generally disappointing.
02:16We've had three different managers for the second season in a row.
02:20The deterioration of the pitch has been almost like a public rebuke to the way that things
02:26are going.
02:27I think Pools are staring down the barrel of a bottom half finish in the National League.
02:33They obviously finished 12th last season.
02:35They still need to get a few points to be absolutely certain of their National League
02:40status.
02:41That's obviously going to be significant for all sorts of reasons, not least because a
02:45National League club will be far more attractive to any prospective investors than one in the
02:50National League.
02:51Presumably from Raj Singh's point of view as well, it'll better hold its value.
02:57It's been a really turbulent few years, hasn't it, Rich, since Raj Singh took over the club
03:02at the end of the 2017-18 season.