Confusion reigns as Cooper leaves Pools

By Albatross
May 4 2005

Talk about trouble from out of a clear blue sky! Hartlepool United and Neale Cooper have gone their seperate ways, and it's hard to imagine this happening at a worse time. Martin Scott will be in charge for the rest of the season.

The news from the club arrived via Test at about 2:50pm: "The Club announces that effective immediately Neale Cooper has left the Club by mutual consent." To say that this is something of a bombshell is an understatement: and the timing could hardly be worse, with this week's vital game at Bournemouth just three days away.

Although a statement is now avaialable on the Official Site, as when Newell went it tells nothing beyond the bald fact that Coops is now no longer in charge, and that Martin Scott is in charge for the rest of the season - with no applications currently accepted for the post. There will, says the statement, be no further comment from anyone at the club regarding Cooper's departure.

With nothing to go on as to why, we are to an extent waiting to see if Cooper himself will spill any beans; therefore anything else is speculation. No doubt there will be more than a few wild and wacky theories doing the rounds, and I'd appeal to anyone considering posting them on the Message Board to think very carefully before doing so - no defamatory stuff please, and no threats.

Trying to get beyond the initial shock of what's happened, there are one or two theories that I am prepared to consider. One is that he's had an offer from a side in Scotland, with quite possibly the most likely one Dunfermline. After sacking Davie Hay they are in the market for a new man, and as a former player Cooper might fit the bill. Jim Leishman has been appointed as caretaker boss though - had Coops been approached and asked Pools to let him go, only to be told that if he went it was on the spot and not at the end of the season?

The other is quite simply that Cooper is homesick. He's indicated once or twice that he finds it hard being away from his children, who are still north of the border; and when he walked away from Ross County it wasn't entirely to do with football matters. Having been at Pools for two years, maybe the strain had just got too much, and he asked to be released from his contract for that reason. If that is the case, then a certain Jack Ross might be feeling even more hard done by than he does already....

If there is one bright spot in this situation, it's that there is a measure of continuity. Martin Scott will take charge for Saturday's game and presumably any playoff fixtures if we make it; and the club won't even look at other options until things this season have been resolved. Scott is also almost certainly the front runner for the job in any case; rumour has it he was promised that he'd be next in line as and when Cooper left in any case, and I think he'd be a popular appointment. And although this has hardly done much for our chances heading into Saturday, Scott still has the opportunity to lead Pools not just into the Playoffs but into the Championship. Here's hoping, and I'm sure the travelling Pools fans will get the hang of "Martin Scott's Blue and White Army" in time to give him a rousing rendition of it this weekend.

There will be more reaction once the shock starts to lessen and I can think straight again!