2003/4 Season Review: February Free Kicks

By Albatross
June 10 2004

February saw Hartlepool United with four games that yielded just one win - but we could have taken them all. Still, a new legend was born as Hugh Robertson gave us a dramatic demonstration of his set piece skills.

The end of January had seen the very late postponement of the home game with Mike Newell's Luton, and Adam Boyd returning to Boston on loan. The consensus seemed to be that Boyd's time was pretty well up as far as Pools were concerned... however events would prove otherwise.

One player whose time was definately finished at the Vic though was full back Jon Bass. The former Birmingham player left Pools after a deal was done to release him from his contract - and he soon found himself jetting off to Singapore after an offer of a trial in the S-League. Meanwhile, Jermaine Easter went on trial with Cambridge and earned himself a loan move.

The first game of the month saw Pools travel to Barnsley, and there was plenty of action for both sets of fans in a game not lacking in goals, entertainment, and no little controversy. Pools went ahead through Williams, Lumsdon was sent off after elbowing Shuker - though the Barnsley fans claimed otherwise and booed him remorselessly - and that was just the first half. The second saw a world class save from Provett, Richie following through on a long throw and catching Rankin who was trying to block it to earn his own chorus of boos, Nardiello putting the Tykes level and then earning a dubious penalty that Betsy had saved by Provett, Tinkler putting Pools back in the lead and then Hayward pulling the home side level again to leave Pools with a 2-2 draw. Caught your breath yet?

Valentines Day saw us taking on Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, but there was to be no repeat of our cup victory. Pools had the majority of the play but failed to make the most of their chances; and then a shocking piece of refereeing handed Sheffield Wednesday the winner with a penalty for a "foul" on Olsen that had the player himself admitting he didn't know if he had been touched by Westwood. A bad injury to Strachan also added to Pools problems.

This prompted Cooper to bring in winger Stephen Carson, and the former Barnsley player was on the bench for our Friday Night game with Blackpool. Robinson once again had to go off with injury early on, and although Pools dominated the game we once again struggled to finish off our chances. Hugh Robertson was the hero of the night; after a couple of free kicks to help him find his range, he bagged an extraordinary set piece goal to put us ahead. After his initial strike was ruled out because the Ref was still trying to get the Blackpool wall back, Shuggie achieved cult status by putting the ball almost into the same spot in the goal; for the rest of the season, chants of "Hugh!" would be the order of the day when we won a fre kick almost anywhere in our opponents half! Pools won a penalty through Shuker that should have won the game - however the loan winger's spot kick was saved, and shortly after Mike Sheron bagged the equaliser. Despite 25 shots on goal, we had just one goal and one point for our efforts. Were we about to hit a striker crisis?

The following week calmed a few fears on that front at least. Pools faced Wycombe at Adams Park, and won 4-3 in a real topsy-turvy game. Williams put Pools ahead, Wycombe equalised, and then Robertson scored with another superb free kick to put us back ahead on the 10 minute mark; a second equaliser followed before a Tinkler penalty put us ahead again before half time. A second for Eifion just after the break gave us a two goal lead, and we needed it as Tyson pulled another back as we scraped home.

We were 11th at the end of the month, but still in playoff contention. Four home games out of six the following month would be crucial - would we make them count?