There's no place like home....

By Albatross
September 28 2005

....but at the moment for Hartlepool United Victoria Park is no place like home. The general view on last night is that we're not even a shadow of the side that had been so dominant at home that it's often been a case of guessing which month we'll suffer our first home defeat of the season.

In fact, although we're a long way from plumbing new depths, this is our worst opening at home for some time. Not just the IOR tenure: it's much longer than that. Four points from six home games is not good in anyone's books

A quick gander at the Pools Stats site (see the Links page) reveals that the last time we had such a meagre total was 1989/90, a time when a certain Bobby Moncur was in charge - and even he had seen us win one of the games at home, although admittedly that was balanced by a 6-0 hammering on our own patch by Doncaster. For a worse start in terms of home points, you have to go back as far as 1986/7, when just three points came from the opening eighteen at home and it was our eighth home game (early November) before we managed a victory.

So, this is in fact our worst home start to a season in more than fifteen years, and you have to go back almost twenty for one that was even poorer. The crowds are voting with their feet - there were only just over 4000 home fans last night. What was the aim for the season again? Oh yes, Automatic Promotion.....

It's getting harder and harder to defend Scott, and I'm inclined to not even try to be honest. I'm not going to go as far as calling for him to be sacked - that's not my style in any case - but at the moment he isn't getting results, and I'm at best somewhat ambivalent about having him in charge. Can he turn it around? Maybe he can, and if he leads us back up the table and into the top six I'll be more than happy. Unfortunately it's ever more difficult to see that happening.