Pools need see-saw to go up

If ever Hartlepool United needed to pick themselves up, dust themselves down and start all over again, they do on Friday night when Rochdale visit Victoria Park. Last weekend’s horrible result at Walsall, where they threw away a 2-0 lead and were hammered 5-2 by one of the worst teams in league One, needs to be consigned to history.

Promoted last season, Rochdale have made a great start to life in League One and they are two places and one point ahead of 11^th-placed Pools, though they have played three games less.

So it won’t be easy as Friday night football returns to the Vic for the first time since October, 2009, after which Pools gave up the idea of moving games away from the traditional Saturday at 3pm.

There’s a good reason this time, of course, with the attraction of Wales v England on Saturday afternoon, though the words “England” and “attraction” seem strange together in the same sentence.

The big question for Pools is whether the see-saw they have been riding for most of the season will be on an up or a down – the law of averages suggests it will be up after two defeats since they virtually clinched League One safety by reaching 50 points.

The home defeat against Orient was unlucky, the defeat t Walsall was rubbish, and Mick Wadsworth has admitted it.

So getting back on track on Friday is absolutely vital.

Meanwhile, former boss Chris Turner says he regrets leaving Pools in August after a fall-out over a proposed investment in the club by a group of Middle East businessmen.

Turner then tried to broker a similar deal for Sheffield Wednesday and it, too, fell through, leaving him unemployed and disillusioned.

He has told the Football Paper: “I was misinformed and misdirected,’’ he said. “I made a mistake in trusting people. Sheffield Wednesday’s board were hoodwinked by them as well.

“It left me in the lurch – I had burned my bridges at both ends and been left of work.’’ Speaking to The Football Paper, Turner added: “I left Hartlepool on the strength of these investors, but when it came to the crunch the investment wasn’t there.

“This left me in no-man’s land.”

Turner says there is no animosity between him and chairman Ken Hodcroft, suggesting that at one time there was. But whether that means he will return to the club, like Russ Green who left at the same time, remains to be seen. Until he finds a job, he'll have the fittest dog in Hartlepool.