Poolie Kev: Tranmere - time to Scoot?

By Poolie Kev
January 25 2006

After a pause for thought, Poolie Kev returns with his thoughts on the last home game with Tranmere. It says something that the most eye-catching moments didn't involve Hartlepool United's players....

The seventeenth home game of the season in all competitions hove into view with only a meagre return of five wins and five draws including wins over Darlington (still sounds good doesn’t it, however irrelevant) and Dagenham. The reality is, points are easy to nick at the Vic this season, much to the chagrin of the locals.

There was a definite rebellious attitude displaying itself around the hostelries in town before the game with many people planning revolt in the shape of protests and banners and orchestrated chanting for the manager’s head. All very saddening to see but inevitable in these days of accessibility and information availability. The football fan now more than ever lives inside the game. And obviously, everyone’s an expert.

On the plus side, the estimates of the crowd among the faithful were somewhat pessimistic, hovering around the 3500/3800 marks. In the event just short of 4200 showed up including some 120 from Tranmere. It would seem that in these perceived worst of times, we still retain 4000 philosophical Poolies, still 600 or so up on only four years ago.

In the event, an almost silent crowd, Tranmere fans excepted, watched a drab first half with little in the way of goalmouth action or indeed any action at all apart from their midfield kicking lumps out of ours. A chorus of the usual boos followed the players off the pitch.

The second half was almost as dire as the first, brightened only by the most suicidal of two footed challenges by Chris Llewellyn on the now not moon walking Michael Jackson, right in front of the Tranmere dugout resulting in a spot of handbags between various parties. Only Llewellyn was dismissed although when half the dugout comes tearing onto the pitch pushing and shoving we might be entitled to expect some action from the ref apart from him becoming their ringleader. Let me think, leave the pitch to celebrate your goal, get booked. Invade the pitch to chin one of the opposition, no action. Football under UEFA is truly a strange game these days.

Thereafter, the protests started in earnest. A large white banner with the legend ‘Scott Out’ painted in blue was hoisted on the halfway line in the Millhouse Terrace to temporarily disappear and reappear in the arms of a supporter right underneath the press box at the back of the seated part of the stand. A posse of stewards and a policeman purposefully made their way towards the gentleman in question and remonstrations began. By this time few were watching the game and an undercurrent of unrest was rippling through the crowd.

The banner holder held up his banner to cheers from the Town End, mainly ironic ones as the banner was back to front. He was escorted down the steps and towards the exits at the Town End of the Millhouse, pausing at the end of the walkway to hold up the banner again, this time upside down as well as back to front, before being escorted from the ground.

Now in my eyes, this bloke had done little wrong apart from enter the seated area when perhaps his ticket didn’t entitle him to. I expect the charge was one of ‘incitement.’ In which case, the cheerleader orchestrating the ‘Scotty Out’ chants, whether you agree with him or not, should have been hoofed too. All 2500 of him.

In the meantime, at half time, there was a small altercation in the Cyril Knowles Stand whereby another supporter had hoisted a ‘Scotty Out’ banner and hung it on the end wall of the stand. A heavy presence of stewards was in attendance and the Head Of Security was in conversation with him, asking him to take the banner down which he refused to do, stating that when times were good, the club loved banners and flags of all sorts so when times were bad, why should the reverse be done? It was a good and well stated argument and the incident fizzled out with the management backing down.

After the whistle, there was another incident in the Town End as a small crowd chanted for Scotty’s head and were confronted by a large party of stewards trying to eject them and using derogatory terms of description. May I remind the powers that be that Victoria Park is not a nightclub and quarter to five is not 2am or whatever time they kick out these days?

Now whichever side of the fence you stand, or indeed if you’re sitting on it, such tactics by the club cannot be healthy. It gives the impression that you are only welcome at the ground if you blindly support the club.

Poolies are notoriously hard wearing as I demonstrated earlier with the attendance figures which the wider perception would say were disastrous recently. That would only be by comparison and expectation, but the one thing Poolies will have is their say. You cannot shut a Poolie up.

May I suggest that unless things take an upward turn quick smart, stewards, bouncers, policemen, call them what you will, bring them from wherever, the general opinion will be heard and heard loudly. The way forward is not suppression, it’s progression.

On a brighter note, and with the usual humour inherent at Hartlepool games, another banner was displayed in the Spot before the game and whilst libation was taking place. The perpetrator, not being able to lay hands on a bed sheet to make his banner had settled on a blue valance instead. Being somewhat enthusiastic in his artwork, he’d included one too many ‘o’s and not enough ‘t’s.

The resulting frill edged banner, therefore read ‘Scooty Out.’ Somewhat lacking in impact hey?? Only in Hartlepool.