Victoria Park

As a long standing (and now sitting) supporter of Hartlepool United, I can't help but think that all of this talk about whether or not the Council should sell the ground to Pools owners,  Increased Oil Recovery Ltd (IOR) rather misses the point.

It's possible, actually it's quite easy to sympathise with both points of view: the Councils' and that of IOR.

The Council is there to represent the interests of the whole town. It currently owns the lease on the ground which comes with an inbuilt clause that the land is only ever to be used for recreation. The last time the issue was examined, the Council decided, with an eye on future development, not to sell the lease to IOR.

The Oil Company for its part has made considerable investment in the ground and has now decided that financially it makes bad business sense to go on investing money in a ground it does not actually own.

I hope those meetings were conducted in a good spirit because both parties had perfectly reasonable positions.

My own view, for what it is worth, is that Victoria Park should be precisely that - a park. The football ground occupies one of the very few pieces of Council owned or leased land in the centre of the town and what the town has always lacked is a town centre park. Think of towns that we consider as pleasant towns and you will note how many of these are blessed with town centre parks. As Hartlepool strives to change its image the creation of such a park would do nothing but good. Somewhere to recharge batteries or spend a lunch break; to stop off with the kids after a bit of shopping or just to sit and enjoy the flowers.

Now there is an awful lot of tradition in a football club and some of my old mates would take umbrage at the suggestion I know, but so many other clubs have taken the decision to move out of town centres to build brand new grounds that end up doing both their clubs and their town proud. Even the obnoxious Darlo have made this move as have Middlesbrough and Sunderland. The latest is Everton who will be moving to a site that's actually outside of the Liverpool City boundary. So why not Hartlepool?

The town doesn't want any more development in the town centre save to finish off the Shopping Centre. We don't want any more supermarkets or retail parks. What we need now is space. What we need from the Council is the courage to resist the temptation to develop on any piece of spare land it can find.

There are grants available from Government bodies as well as the Football League and Premiership to help facilitate such a move and the town has plenty of land in the Brenda Road area which is not suitable for high-density housing and which the Council could offer freehold to IOR on generous terms. Any talk of football academies is equally applicable to a new ground.

It occurs to me that there are a number of advantages besides the park. Not least of these is the removal of the possibility of large numbers of fans from the town centre - a situation which has not always led to pleasant outcomes. There is also the possibility of building a small, purpose built railway halt adjacent to the ground.

I've supported Pools for years and it's always been a roller-coaster of a ride. Like every fan I have hopes for the future but I also have hopes that my grand children will grow up in a better town than the one in which I grew up.

I won't say that it wouldn't be a wrench or that there wouldn't be a few tears in saying goodbye to a place with so many memories. That said, like everywhere else, Hartlepool is now in the 21st Century. Perhaps it's time we had a 21st Century ground which matches the aspirations of both its team and its fans.  what do you think?

Jimmy from the Rink End