Mick W - happy

By Charlie Summerbell
July 24 2011

Mick Wadsworth says he would quite happily do without pre-season games, so Hartlepool United's 3-2 win at Workington won't be getting him too excited, just as losing at home to Barnsley last week didn't cause him to start rining the alarm bells. 

Two teams, different in each half, got in some valuable match practice and the same will happen during a busy week which ends with the home game against Sunderland for Richie Humphreys’s testimonial on Tuesday August 2 – just four days before the start of the League One season.

Games against non-League opposition at Whitby, Harrogate and York during the week and another at Horden the day after the Humphreys game will round off Pools preparations.

But Wadsworth says he would rather do without such games because then when the season starts, players should be desperate to play and to play well.

It’s a theory he admits will probably never be tried out, pre-season friendlies are such an institution in English football.

Meanwhile, Wadsworth says he’s delighted to sign 18-year-old centre-half Jack Baldwin from Kent non-League side Faversham Town. He chose Pools ahead of local side Gillingham, and Wadsworth says he’s a top prospect for the future.

There are worries at pools that the Sunderland game is too close to the opening League fixture, but the chances it will be one of those games in which the tackles might not be as full-blooded as they will be a few days later.