Kick up the backside for Pools

Typical Pools ... just when Hartlepool United fans thought things were going well in the build-up to the new season, they and the players have been given a firm kick up the backside to remind them that nothing can ever be taken for granted. 

Season tickets sales hitting new heights, unbeaten in two games in Holland and apparently going well in training ... it all looked so good.

Losing 3-0 at home to Barnsley in a pre-season friendly is not the end of the world, but it’s not ideal either – hopefully it will serve as a reminder that in the real world, miracles hardly happen.

Pools were second best throughout the game, and even allowing for the fact that Barnsley will be playing in the Championship next season, there were a few worrying signs.

as usual there were changes galore during the game, but the Pools attack never got a look-in, the midfield was overpowered and the defence was opened up too easily and too often.

Nobby Solano played his first home game and his class was evident, but only in patches, and that applied to too many others, too.

Barnsley were allowed to take hold of the game and dominate it, and if Pools do that in League One they’ll be in trouble.

Against his home-town club, it was hardly what boss Mick Wadsworth was looking for, but no doubt he will use the experience as an example of the fact that no matter how well things appear to be going, there’s a banana skin round very corner.

It’s a rule that has applied to Pools more than most over the years.