Poolie Kev: Wide Open Space

Vic Park
By Poolie Kev
December 12 2005

Written at the end of last week but not published until after the Bournemouth game due to Albatross not checking his email, here are some words of wisdom from Poolie Kev following the defeat at home to Colchester....

There are three types of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics. One minute we’re winning five out of seven, the next we’re losing four out of five. It’s enough to make your head spin.

And on Tuesday at the Colchester game if you had taken your cat and subjected it to the space test there’d have been no inconvenience to your nearest neighbour, not even from noise pollution as kitty swirled.. The biggest surprise of the night was when one of the Town End regulars turned up fifteen minutes after kick off and when quizzed as to his tardiness replied that he hadn’t been able to get parked. I wondered if he was driving a pantechnicon.

There are enough downbeat homilies being delivered from the writing public at the moment and the issue of the Poolies voting with their feet. It was truly saddening to see the sub-3500 crowd on Tuesday. I personally do not believe the bad days are returning and I think that any team that can win as many as it loses will do OK in this league without setting it alight. There’s a dearth of talent in the division and a plethora of hardworking, organised, steely, stubborn and gritty clubs. Has anyone noticed that Doncaster have lost more than we have, including one to us, and yet are above us in the league??

Dave Penney of course gets away with it because of their amazing Carling Cup run. Having said at the beginning of the season that Donny could go through the division and having been given half a million to spend on Thornton and Heffernan, the faithful at the erstwhile and puzzlingly named Belle Vue could charitably be forgiven for calling for his head. But due to victories against first Manchester City and latterly Aston Villa he’s the bee’s knees. Had we managed to beat Tamworth and drawn Newcastle United, might the spotlight be shining in another direction than the beleaguered Martin?? Probably.

Maybe when Mr Scott avers that we have the work ethic and we don’t have the luck and the players are working their socks off, he doesn’t quite get the credence that Penney has. Notoriously fickle, the average football supporter has the memory retention of a humming bird and traditionally a team is only as good as it’s last two results. In Hartlepool’s case the least said the soonest mended. I do feel that there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the stuff that the team are playing lately but typically in football, when it’s going badly it goes disastrously, as evinced by Neil Collins header in the dying minutes of Tuesday night. Surely he couldn’t miss. Sadly he managed although quite how escapes me.

The impatience demonstrated by the Poolies is sadly not surprising. In these days of total victory and ritual humiliation by television, anything less that constant champagne football was never going to keep the armchair fan from his love affair with the free scoring (!) Chelsea, Arsenal and upcoming heroes Wigan. Even Alex Ferguson, knighted for his success with Manchester United, has questions asked about his P45 when they lose two Champions League matches. How bizarre and how disloyal but I’d have to say promulgated by the tabloid press. In our case it’s the terrace fan that’s giving his opinion loudly and repeatedly, which of course is infinitely more worrying. You would have to ask how that phenomenon came about? Was it fan power that despatched Mr Newell to Luton?? I certainly thought so at the time and nothing I have heard since has altered that opinion.

In opposition to my friend and colleague Albatross I think we should sit tight at least until the end of the season. Were the away record swapped for the home record perhaps your average Poolie would be more encouraged. After all, no one pays to watch their team lose, and lose we have in spades at Vicky Park thus far in the campaign. But when the game is open and the midfield isn’t packed and the crowd isn’t on their backs, Pools have produced some good stuff this season. The saddening thing is that the vast majority of fans haven’t seen that and are still smarting from Yeovil, Brentford, Tamworth and now Colchester. Sadly they’ve only seen three home wins in four months, no wonder they’re fed up and consequently demanding wholesale chage.

I hope on Saturday that an early one flies in for the lads, and with the pressure off we develop the swagger and confidence that will spark a good run. The annoying thing is, you can see it bubbling under but it just won’t surface, a bit like trapped wind. Let’s pray that flatulence is the order of the day against Bournemouth.

See you there.