By Poolie Kev
October 5 2005

Poolie Kev gets around a lot - you'd hate to have his petrol bill. In between bouts of traversing the country he found time to give his thoughts on recent games against Chesterfield and Rotherham, and even sampled Public Transport.... Another double header this time, Chesterfield and Rotherham. Now I like Chesterfield, it’s 13 miles away from me and I can be there in about half an hour allowing for all the Derbyshire pensioners driving at 20mph in their Diahatsu Sirions. So parking up close to the ground my mate Roger (a Blades fan but this is his fifth game and he did come up for the Darlo game, give me time) and I repaired to The Industry for pre match prandials. There was already at that early hour a fair smattering of Poolies around and a steady stream continued to arrive signalling a decent turnout.

Now football stadium toilets have improved tremendously over the last 10 years, particularly since the Taylor Report recommended treating footy fans as people and not crazed barbarians (Scunthorpe police please note). However at Chesterfield, as in the rest of Derbyshire, the second half of last century didn’t happen and we were consigned to a black painted wall with a trough at the bottom. Strange that, they’ve introduced on the spot fines for peeing up walls as it’s deemed to be insulting behaviour but in Chesterfield it’s the recommended route. With HUFC fans pre match habits it was well populated.

Regrettably while lots of Poolies turned up, in the second half the team failed to and the result was a great disappointment. It does have to be said that Chesterfield played very well in the second half but we need to be coming up to speed sooner.

So putting the disappointment behind me, my attention turned to the Rotherham game. It’s been a while since we last met them due to their heroic exploits in double promotion and a period of stasis in the next division up, which obviously has had about three names since their accession into it.

By the miracle of planning I had to be at a meeting in Enfield at 11am that day. However, they pay my wages and so at 7.30am I headed off down the A1 in completely the wrong direction!! The meeting lasted less than 20 minutes (don’t you just hate it when they send someone who can’t make a decision??) and then I could concentrate on driving straight past my house and on to Hartlepool, hoping to arrive with time for scoff, change and shower. This was about the time I remembered that I hadn’t booked a hotel and having already done 380 miles, I certainly didn’t fancy driving home after the game.

So having the Grand’s details on my phone I rang them. Unfortunately the said they were full. What?? On a Tuesday night in September?? How strange. So the next call went to me Gilly who internetted a few numbers for me and I ended up at the Staincliffe. Bit far out but no worse for that. So pulling on the black shirt of honour I did something I haven’t done in Hartlepool for some 30 years. I caught a bus. I did, honest; I got the bus from outside the Stancliffe and into Church Square and went in the Ward Jackson for a pint and a read of the Hartlepool Mail.

Well that lasted about twenty minutes and thereafter I joined the chaps in the Millhouse for a deep and meaningful on where we’re going wrong. There are many opinions but the general consensus is that midfield isn’t linking up as it has and should. I have to say, there wasn’t any optimism in the air.

Regrettably this was reflected in the attendance, which was about 500 down on what might have been expected. Now I know we’d played four times in ten days and we’d only pulled one point out of nine going into this game but I still felt a little flat at the spaces in the Town End. It’s another aspect of the ‘era’s over’ train of thought. It’s a great shame that we aren’t living up to expectations but I still feel it’ll come right. It’s a stupid division this year and as I write we’re at the wrong end but only four points off where we finished last season. How bizarre.

But a clean sheet was duly kept which was a step forward and since then a second and a brilliant hard fought win at Bristol (which, due to me Gilly auditioning for Lottery Jet Set in Newcastle, a strange place full of black and white striped people talking incomprehensively, I had to miss) has seen things look up considerably. Hopefully, confidence in the camp and also in the crowd will start to rise now and we can start our season proper. Here’s hoping.