2004/5 Season Review - September

By Albatross
June 2 2005

September 2004 saw Hartlepool United facing a deepening injury crisis, and a certain Kevin Betsy wasn't helping matters. Pools had another mixed month, and the away form was starting to be a cause for concern.

September started in a bad way for Pools in a number of ways. Our injury crisis was mounting, with Robertson, Barron, Tinkler and Clarke all unavailable. Kevin Betsy's loan deal finished, and although Pools were trying to sort out a permanent deal it turned out we had competition from Oldham and Port Vale. In any case, he would not be eligable to play against Barnsley in the first game of the month. On the day of that game came more bad news: Paul Mullen, co-founder of Monkey Business and the club's Media Manager, had passed away after a long illness.

Pools came away with a 1-1 draw, but at the cost of losing Eifion Williams to injury and now we were pretty much at crisis point. Things were to get worse before they got better; Jack Ross aggravated his knee injury and wouldn't appear for another two months with surgery required. Meanwhile, Betsy had decided to take the money Oldham were offering ahead of the security of the two year deal at Pools; he would be lining up against us the following Saturday.

Cooper meanwhile was having to try and bring in other players to fill out his squad and brought in a couple of loan signings: youngster Martin Woods joined from Leeds, and Alan Pouton arrived from Gillingham. Even so it was a makeshift lineup at Boundary Park: two first year pros, two debutants - one of them still in his teens, one youth team player starting (Foley) and another two coming on as subs, and Richie Humphreys shifted across to the right wing. Inevitably Pools struggled - and inevitably Betsy was one of our main tormentors in a 3-2 loss that was nowhere near as close as the scoreline suggested.

"Betsygate" was soon to calm somewhat though, with the revelation that his wage demands would have made him the highest earner at Pools - and most agreed with Cooper's assessment that he would not have been the best player in the squad.

The following week saw Pools back to winning ways at home, a 4-1 win over Torquay with a lineup that still looked less than our best but at least seemed more able to compete - Tinkler started the game, and Barron was on the bench as we looked like starting to come out of our injury problems.

There was concern being expressed in some quarters about the apparent lack of money for team spending, with the Hartlepool Mail in the vanguard calling for IOR to open their cheque book. Ken Hodcroft, not for the last time, wasn't too impressed with the local paper; after all, under IOR's stewardship Pools had advanced considerably.

Another name with club connections made the headlines at this point; the legendary Brian Clough died this month, finally succumbing to cancer.

Meanwhile Pools had a Carling Cup tie at Crystal Palace - a fixture that was hardly attractive to either side, shown by the attendance of under 4500. Not many gave us a chance, even against a weakened Palace lineup; but some inspired goalkeeping from Jim Provett kept them at bay before Williams put us in the lead on 70 minutes. Freedman equalised ten minutes later before Pools finally went out after extra time - with plenty of credit to take from their performance.

Sadly the same couldn't be said the next weekend. A visit to the much disliked MK Dons - complete with Concrete Cows - should have been an easy three points; but having only scored once Pools went in at the break level and then self-destructed in the second half, going 4-1 down. McLeod was then dismissed after tangling with Sweeney; the Pools midfielder needlessly retaliated and was also dismissed. Boyd grabbed a late second for Pools, but too late to make much difference. Sweeney would be banned for three games.

Our last game of the month was also the first of two home games with Hull in the space of a week. The LDV 1st round wasn't a big draw - only just over 1500 were there - but there was incident and entertainment aplenty. Pools were 2-0 down just after half time, but when keeper Boaz Myhill was sent off it allowed Pools to get back in the game. 2-2 at full time became 3-3 after extra time, and then some inspired goalkeeping from Dimi Konstantopoulos - making just his third appearance for Pools - helped us win the shootout and progress to the next round. Would October provide the same sort of excitement?