A View from Afar - Part 4

By Albatross
August 20 2002

Cup Games often provide a way for exiles to "top up" their watching of Pools during the season. Albatross recalls some of the Cup Ties he's seen away from home over the last few years.

Cup Ties away from home have provided me with many memorable moments: sometimes for good reasons, other times for bad, and occasionally for the highly unusual. In previous articles I've talked about my experiences at Chester in the Auto Windscreens and Crewe in the same competition.

The Worthington Cup draw with Tranmere immediately sent my mind back to the time when we played them in this competition about 5 years back. The First Leg was away at Prenton Park, so the night in question saw me heading through one of the Mersey Tunnels to the Wirral. The thing that sticks in my mind is not so much the match (we lost despite a decent performance) but what happened just before it.

About to enter into the ground, I was stopped by a young tall bloke, who asked me if I was a Hartlepool fan going in to the match. When I confirmed I was, he said "Do you want a ticket?" Seeing the sceptical look on my face (admittedly it would have been a very strange game for a tout to sell tickets for), he quickly revealed that he was in fact with the team. Tranmere had given each Pools player several Complimentary tickets, and as they had no-one else to pass them on to, a couple of the lads were deputed to go and hand them out to the travelling fans. I think about half of us got in for nothing. If you're reading this Stephen Hutt, thanks - on behalf of all of us who got in for nowt!

Playing Bolton at the Reebok was also an interesting experience - paying a Fiver to park wasn't a good start. But the match made up for it, with Gus Di Lella having a storming game, and Bolton's shooting being so inaccurate for the most part that after a while they stopped showing the replays on their big screen out of embarrassment.

Going back further, I remember going to the Sheffield United FA Cup game after we'd beaten Palace, and by way of extra support taking along an American Student. She was in Lancaster for the year, and wanted to do everything while she was in the UK - including going to a "Sahckher" match, and so I obliged! Shame that Alan Cork had to spoil the day.

Returning to Crewe the season before last was not something to look forward to, but we performed creditably and almost came away with something out of the game. The tie did inspire regular Monkey Business cartoonist Elmo to produce a ditty based on "Oh, Mr. Porter" that is still visible on his Website "Left Hand down a bit", saw Crewe selling a large team poster in the guise of a Programme, and also saw one of Andy Dibble's few good performances for Pools.

But for me the most memorable game was last season's Youth Cup game at Old Trafford; Pools Fans making the Theatre of Dreams resonate to their songs, the sight of "Manchester United 0 Hartlepool United 1" on the Scoreboard on the North Stand, and above all a terrific performance from Pools' young lads. Hopefully there'll be a few good Cup Ties for these lads in the future - this time in the First Team!