Carling Cup draw sees Pools take on the Macc Lads

By Albatross
July 8 2004

Hartlepool United have been drawn against Macclesfield Town in the first round of the Carling Cup - a tie that has been welcomed by the management, but also one that means Pools will have to make a bit of history if they are to reach the second round once more.

The tie is something of a mixed blessing as far as I'm concerned. On the one hand, Macclesfield should on paper be one of the weaker sides in the competition, and a home tie therefore gives us an excellent chance of progressing; on the other we have, infamously, never beaten Macclesfield at Victoria Park - a couple of draws are all we have to show from six attempts.

The attention of Pools fans will no doubt be drawn to Tommy "we're Hartlepool not Liverpool" Widdrington, who is now plying his trade at Moss Rose and has even ben appointed Captain for the new season. However he is far from the only connection between the two squads. Also on the books at Macc at the moment are sometime Poolies Tony Barrass and Jon Parkin.

Meanwhile in other news Dave Brown has followed up last year's Division 3 Groundsman of the Year award with this year's Division 2 award - and he will be hoping to go a step further and take the overall prize as well. Certainly it's been hard to fault the playing surface at the Vic over the last two seasons, and with intensive work on the pitch over the close season we can expect another year of having one of the best surfaces around to play football on. Not only that, Pools have benefitted as well from having fewer postponements - meaning we have mostly avoided the fixture pileups that have affected other sides.

There's still no definate news about signings, but one player that won't be joining Pools is Tommy Mooney. The North-Easterner was touted by some as a possible signing, but he has instead opted to stay down south and has joined Oxford United.