Adam Boyd - goal

By Charlie Summerbell
July 10 2011

Hartlepool United's annual pre-season trip to Holland got off to a winning start as they beat Appeldoorn 2-0 on a plastic pitch in Heiloo. Adam Boyd and young Jordan Richards were the scorers as Pools came out on top against a home team that gave them an excellent work-out. 

Mick Wadsworth described the game as a useful exercise after changing his team completely at half-time.

He told the club website that the object was to get his squad going and to increase fitness levels.

“We gave 21 players time on the pitch,” he added. “We’ve worked very hard in pre-season and haven’t really broken stride ahead of the game.”

Pools play Den Bosch on Monday night … this time on grass.

There are four weeks to go to the start of the new season, so a lot is going to happen between now and then, but the squad at least looks in promising shape and Wadsworth told the Hartlepool Mail: “For now we just want to improve on last year. I want us to be higher, where that takes us who knows?

“I don’t know where that is yet. At times last year we were terrific in games and at other times we were quite poor.

“There is potential there to achieve something this year and we will be aiming high.

“But we’ve got to take our time and make sure we’re fully prepared to the best possible degree before we make any predictions – as long as no-one starts panicking if we lose a couple of friendly matches and calls for me to be sacked”

With less than a week to go, Pools are closing in on their season tickets sales target of 4,000, which would give supporters the bargain of entry into every home league One game of the season for just £100. Sales have now crept past the 3,500 mark, and that means the most fans will be paying is £150 for the season.

And with that 4,000 figure clearly in reach as sales get a late boost, it could be even lower.