By Albatross
September 3 2002

It's frustrating for any exile when you can't make games, whether they are at home or away. Albatross looks at how an exile copes with the games that just can't be got to.... Being a Poolie Exile and missing Home Games has been a frustrating experience in recent seasons. Having access to the internet helps, and at least with the new Pools World service I can get commentary on every game now, but the last few seasons have often been spent glued to Teletext, Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday, or trying to find a way of listening to the game.

Of course, Online commentaries are widespread now, but it's only a couple of seasons ago that they were almost as rare as hen's teeth. Lincoln had it, and I remember listening to commentary on the away leg of the Playoffs against Darlo, but that was it. The Lincoln one was listenable if biased - it was courtesy of BBC Radio Lincoln - but the Darlo one was done by someone who was obviously a fan and was, let's say, prone to hyperbole; at one point he tried to claim (with no apparent trace of irony) that Darlington were playing better than Brazil!

Very occasionally I found myself in range of a Radio Station covering a Pools game. Remember the match against Cardiff, where Tommy Miller put us 2-1 up late on, only for Cardiff to score twice in injury time? That day I was able to pick up Radio Wales, who were covering the match, which put me in the unusual position of being able to inform the other Poolies in the Internet Chatroom of the dramatic events at Ninian Park.

Saturdays frequently see me listening on the web while spending time in an Internet Chatroom (often ITN's) talking to other Poolies. With people from all over the country - and beyond - logging on it's amazing how an atmosphere can build up when there's a few people there. Sometimes you'll see "Two little boys" being 'sung' as Poolies type in the words line by line; others will be a few seconds ahead on the commentary; still others will have no commentary and some of us will wear our fingers to the bone typing in as much of the commentary as we can.

There have been one or two unusual visitors as well; Monkey Down Under in Australia has been known to frequent the game, so has Lars from Sweden. And on one memorable occasion we were joined for the Darlo game last season by none other than Tommy Widdrington, logging in from his home in the Potteries to banter with the fans.

Possibly the most agonising net experience though was last season's playoff game at Whaddon Road; more than 20 of us in the Chat Room had to suffer through the penalties, some of us discovering that Radio 5 Live was covering them as well... and was about 30 seconds ahead of the web commentary.

All in all though, it's only ever a poor substitute for being there. However, when you're an exile, it's the best you're going to get!