JONES HERE TO BUILD A CULTURE ANDDECORATE!

The new boss is switching training grounds, just a few hundred yards, but it’s all part of his plan to get Pools on the move.

Pools will remain part of the Durham University set-up but are to base themselves at the Racecourse Ground nearer the city centre in Durham.

Long-term plans were already afoot to move out of Maiden Castle, but Jones has brought it forward!

“We will be moving training ground next week,” he said. “We have a great facility here, but it’s a public facility.

“If we want a meeting we are relying on a room to be free. Eating, we can’t always eat together.

“I want to build an environment for the club, an atmosphere which is ours and it all adds to the DNA of the club – a culture, a philosophy which is Hartlepool United.

“You are at your strongest when you are new, so why not do it now?”

The club’s youth players have been at the facility painting and decorating and Jones and his backroom team, Brian Clough-style, have been helping.

And, again, that’s all part of the culture he wants – teamwork and unity.

“The kids painted the dressing-rooms yesterday and they could be sitting in them in six months,” he said.

“There was probably more paint on them than on the walls but what a great feeling if it happens.

“They’ve done a lot of work and we were there helping them – we’re not frightened to get our hands dirty.

“We are all in it together, that’s what I want here.

“If you go to Southampton, Wolves, or Wednesday you can guarantee things I implemented will still be there.

“It’s the right thing to do.

“You don’t build a house and don’t put a kitchen in it, you put everything you need into it.

“That’s what I’m doing here, I’m putting in place all the the things that are needed. There may be something I miss, I’m always ready to listen.”

Getting it right off the field, whether that’s having the right coloured paint on the walls, is all part of the Jones make-up.

“The smoother the club runs the more you can concentrate on important thing – the football,” he said.

“If it runs smoothly off-field then it transfers onto the pitch too, that’s the mentality I’m trying to instil around the place.”

Jones has only been in the job just over a week but, clearly, he’s already making his mark.

The former Stockport, Southampton, Wolves, Cardiff and Sheffield Wednesday boss has not managed for three years since his departure from Hillsborough at the end of 2013.

He quickly reminds reporters that he has not been out of football in the meantime, just not sat in a dug-out.

But he says there is a buzz to be back on the training field on a daily basis and is relishing being in the technical area at Newport County tomorrow.

“When I was doing other things in football I enjoyed it, but without getting that buzz you get on a matchday,” he said. “I felt why do it for someone else, when I could be doing it myself?

“I like that buzz.

“There has been a good atmosphere, I think everyone has enjoyed this week.

“I don’t go around beating the stick, I want people to do things because they enjoy it and that is the same with anyone I come into contact with.”