Pools set a new club record!

By Albatross
December 23 2003

Very few seem to have noticed it, but Pools have just broken one of their Club Records. No, it's not one of John Orley's - the 0-0 draw against Colchester saw us exceed our previous best undefeated home run.

Almost unnoticed by anyone it seems, Pools set a new record at the weekend. The 0-0 draw with Colchester may not have been a great performance, but it rewrote the club history.

According to Gordon Small's excellent Season by Season record of the club, until now our longest home unbeaten run in the league was 27 - a run that started towards the beginning of our Promotion Year of 1967/8, and continued eight games into our campaign in what was then Division 3. Pools equalled this record with the win over Swindon, and exceeded it against Colchester.

With Ernie Phythian and Terry Bell getting the goals that season, 1967/8 saw Pools go on a tremendous home run that did an awful lot to secure promotion. After a win and two draws in our first three home matches, a defeat to Southend on September 16th 1967 was to prove the last time for over a year that we didn't take at least a point at the Vic - although then, as with this run, we did suffer a home defeat in the cup competitions. The remaining nineteen home games of that season saw us with a record of P19 W14 D5 L0 F31 A10.

Life in Division 3 proved somewhat harder, and after eight undefeated home games (of which we won just two) we were trounced 4-1 at the Vic by Barrow on 1st November 1968. That was to be the first of five home defeats that season, but what really sent us down was not converting draws to wins - twelve of our home games saw the scores finishing level.

It's a new record then, with 28 league games going by since Rushden and Diamonds' victory last September. Our league record at the Vic since then reads P28 W17 D11 L0 F56 A19 - compared to our previous record run of P27 W16 D11 L0 F38 A15.

One of the strange coincidences involving that run was that the first and last results of the 27 were identical - and against the same team. On September 29th 1967 we won 2-1 at the Vic to start our run - and completed it on October 18th 1968 when we beat the same opposition by the same score. The team? Barnsley. Signs and portents for our Boxing Day game start here.....