More Surgery for Mickey Barron

Again
By Albatross
July 26 2005

Here we go again.... Poor old Mickey Barron. Having had a terrible time with injury and needing three operations last year, he needs to go under the knife again for a knee cartialage operation. The Pools Skipper will miss the opening of the new season.

Barron hadn't featured much in the warm-up games, and now we know why: a scan has revealed that he needs similar surgery on his cartilage to the type Joel Porter had 2-3 weeks back. He is set to be out for about a month.

Barron must be getting used to this sort of thing by now. In just over a year he's had two operations to sort out a stomach muscle problem, and one for a knee injury; now he's adding another to that for his fourth operation in about 15 months.

Mickey will no doubt be hoping that he'll be back in harness soon, but after having last season wrecked by injury he must surely be fearing that the years of playing are starting to take their toll on his body. He's hardly old as footballers go - but he's been at Pools for a long time now, and has spent almost all of that time as a regular. 300-odd games seem to be catching up on him.

In the meantime Pools have a double-header tonight: the youth team are taking on Berwick in one of our traditional pre-season fixtures, while the first team - including youngsters Carl Jones and James Brown once again - travel further north to play Hibs at Easter Road. After that of course is Friday's pre-season highlight as Newcastle come down to take on Pools. Will we get a few more clues to Scott's preferred system and lineup?