By Albatross
January 12 2005

Hartlepool United have announced that Darrell Clarke - yet to play this season following knee surgery - is joining Stockport County on loan. Does this signal the end of Trigger's career at Victoria Park? Darrell has spent all of this season on the sidelines due to his serious knee injury, and only now is approaching full fitness after featuring in a couple of games for the reserves recently. The decision to allow him out on loan is however still a surprising one in my eyes, as Clarke potentially offers Pools other options even if only as a substitute.

To be honest the current problem for Trigger is where he would fit in to the current lineup. Although he has spent much of his Pools career on the right flank, it's not his natural position and especially after moving up a division that was beginning to be shown up more and more last season; however, as things currently stand it's also hard to see him getting one of the central slots. He's not really someone that could play the holding role for us, so that pretty much rules him out of the Tinkler/Strachan/Ben Clark role, while Sweeney seems to have the attacking midfielder role secure having already scored nine times this season and looked one of our brightest prospects. While a fully-fit Clarke might be a good player to have on the bench, whether he'd be happy to sit there and how he'd recover match fitness without playing first team football are open to debate.

Meanwhile of course Chris Turner, the manager that brought him to Pools in the first place, is now in charge of Stockport and desperately in need of reinforcements. Cooper has presumably decided that Clarke is better off playing in their first team rather than our reserves, and so off he goes.

Any Hatters fans reading this may want to know a little more, so here's a summary: Darrell is not the smartest (hence "Trigger"), but is often one of the fittest. An attacking midfielder, he's the sort of player that may not carve a defence open with one pass, but will make plenty of runs into the box and score a few goals. He's a hard worker, and although he's played mainly on the right for Pools is probably best employed as a central midfielder. He scored his 50th senior goal last season against Port Vale, and at the age of 27 still has plenty of football left in him.

The big question though is whether this will turn into something more permanent. Clarke is probably on a decent wage at Pools (as one of the very few players we've paid money for), and Coops may think it hard to justify paying out for a player that is increasingly looking like a squad member rather than a regular first teamer; alternatively, it may simply be that he wants to, as stated in the club's message, give him an opportunity to get properly match fit ready to slot back into the Pools midfield if necessary. Loans out seem to have gone in a couple of directions over the last 18 months or so; it's benefitted some (Boyd and Appleby the most notable ones) and signalled the end for others (Henderson, Arnison, Richardson). Only time will tell for Trigger.