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Simon Grayson has been speaking following his recent dismissal from Hartlepool United
The 55-year-old spent just 15 games at the helm on Teesside, winning four, drawing seven, and losing four. As such, Grayson becomes the ninth permanent manager to leave the club since the departure of promotion-winning boss Dave Challinor in November 2021. Of those, eight have been sacked while veteran Lennie Lawrence opted to stand down last season, and across Pools’ last five permanent managers or head coaches, none have lasted more than 17 games in the role.
At the time of writing, Hartlepool are yet to announce Grayson’s successor, with experienced midfield veteran Nicky Featherstone currently in interim charge at the club. But as uncertainty continues to swirl, Grayson has broken his silence on his swift dismissal.
What has ex-Sunderland boss Simon Grayson said about Hartlepool United exit
Speaking exclusively to BBC Tees Sport, as quoted by the Hartlepool Mail, when reflecting on losing his job, Grayson said: “It was frustrating and disappointing when you lose your job, because when I spoke to Raj [Singh, chairman] in the summer it was all about... Look, he chased me for a long time and we had a few obstacles to overcome in terms of where the club was, etc.
“But I just felt that we could do that. I've never been frightened of a challenge and I trusted my ability that I would get things going on and off the pitch. Unfortunately, the one thing you don't get in football these days, not just at Hartlepool, it's just the general world of football is time, really. You've seen so many managers leave their jobs so quickly, Premier League, Championship, and beyond. But in the past, that has been a big commodity to have where you can have time to build and overcome a few dodgy spells or a couple of dodgy results that can see you through for success. But hey, it happened and of course I was disappointed.
“My pride was hurt because I felt that I could still achieve something and get to where we wanted to get to. It wasn't as if we were languishing in the bottom half of the division and lost five on the bounce or anything like that. We were only four points off the play-offs at the time. Yeah, of course we'd drawn too many games, but we'd only lost four games and three of them were against Forest Green, Carlisle and York who were flying high at the top of the division.
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“So yeah, it's frustrating, but I know what football's about and I'm not naive enough to know what I was going into and obviously it didn't work out how I'd liked it to work out. Look, the pressure that I feel is when it's a pressure I put on myself, because I know that I've been in the game nearly 800 games and 40 years nearly as playing as well.
“And I know that when results are not going well, something could potentially happen but there were circumstances everybody knows that probably didn't quite help us. There was a few injuries along the way, fine margins in games where we could have gone in front in games and we missed them opportunities but yeah, of course, results speak for themselves and we drew too many games. That was the bottom line, so I'm not daft to understand that.”
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