Monday Musings: The Frustration of the Exiled Fan

By Albatross
November 29 2004

It was another late comeback win for Hartlepool United, and a real nail biter. It's a shame then that those of us having to rely on Pools World couldn't listen in.... and where is Jack Ross? Hopefully we'll find out later today after he failed to take any part in Saturday's win over Bournemouth.

With Pools having snatched victory from the jaws of defeat so dramatically, anyone that left early would have missed a lot of action. The period from 87 minutes onwards saw Pools equalise through Nelson, have a perfectly good goal from Appleby chalked off and a penalty awarded instead, Boyd missing the spot kick, and then Appleby getting the winner with the last kick of the game from what anyone in a Cherries shirt seems to think was a controversial "sympathy" free kick.

Not that yours truly could even listen to this; in common with many others, I was forced to resort to watching the BBC Text Feed as Pools World was unavailable due to a technical fault that wasn't resolved until well after the match. And it wasn't just Pools World that was affected, either; it seems that PTV, who run all of the World sites, had some sort of huge failure that knocked things out fro pretty much everybody. Not exactly a good advert for the service, if it goes down at the time when most people are wanting to use it. The club aren't in much of a position to do anything about it either - they are bound in by a contract signed between the majority of the League (and some Premier) clubs to continue using the PTV service, and all they can do is complain to them. The problems seem to have affected the main site as well, with a match report taking until Monday to appear.

While the win was of course very welcome, there were a number of questions to be asked following the game. Possibly the most notable one is "Where was Jack Ross?" The Scot wasn't even on the bench, leading to rumours circulating that he'd asked for a transfer after failing to settle in the North-East; however, it may be that he was either ill or injured. Assuming it was the latter, we can only hope that he'll be back soon after injury has already badly affected his Pools career so far.

Tuesday Night's LDV tie at Oldham presents something of a conundrum to Cooper. Normally he might try playing one or two "fringe players" and protecting some of the key ones - but with the current injury situation his options to do so seem to be limited to bringing in yet more youth teamers. As it is, Saturday's bench saw Jim Provett as the oldest player on the bench, alongside two first year pros (Craddock and Robson) and two youth teamers (Appleby and Istead). Short of starting with Appleby, Craddock and maybe Istead and bringing the likes of Stephen Turnbull and David Foley onto the bench, he's not got a lot of lattitude other than to play what currently passes for a full-strength team. Oldham meanwhile are likely to start with Kevin Betsy, who seems to have recovered a bit of form just in time to play against Pools again. The other attraction for Latics fans seems to be seeing if sometime Newcastle legend Rob Lee can still kick it - he's likely to make his debut against Pools.

After Tuesday's mildly diverting action, Saturday will see us taking on Aldershot Town in the FA Cup at the Vic. There will be a look at the recent history of our opponents later in the week, and of course the usual Match Preview on Friday. Look out too for the regular Monthly Review - get your Advent Calenders ready folks, December is just around the corner. Will it be a month of Christmas Cheer for Poolies?