Cod Almighty | Diary

A club of long coach journeys and dressing room silences

30 September 2016

Retro Diary writes: There was a time when an autumn home league game with Hartlepool United would have been considered the most mundane part of the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. It was one for the purist, for Hartlepool are very much not exciting. Their Wikipedia entry is a difficult read, being a relentless tale of struggle with little light relief. For me at least, they’re part of a group of unfashionable provincial northern clubs, including Barrow, Southport, Gateshead, Workington and Darlington, for whom mere survival is never completely guaranteed, and adventures into higher divisions are characteristically short.

Recently the Pools enjoyed a cushion between themselves and the non-league for an unprecedented six consecutive seasons between August 2006 and May 2013. But they have flirted with the League’s trapdoor more times than I’m sure they care to think about, and have been rescued by re-election on 14 occasions.

Weird then – to me anyway - that in the last two seasons no fewer than three star players to whom Town had offered new contracts looked at the name 'Hartlepool' on paper, thought "that looks like a good idea" and buggered off there. I sometimes forget that footballers are mostly only half my age and probably set their standards by what happened only in very recent times. Anyone of my vintage just associates Hartlepool with the doldrums and misery. It was always a club of long coach journeys and dressing room silences.

But having been humbled by the non-League, we don’t see them quite that way nowadays. Despite their seemingly permanent flirtation with oblivion, unlike us and indeed several other clubs that seem superficially like them, they never actually dropped out of the 92. When you’ve been to Chasetown and Harrogate, Hartlepool don’t, as a club, even seem all that small.

If you only count league encounters, I was surprised to find out that our two teams’ head-to-head record stands at quits - sixteen wins each, with six draws (although we do tend to beat them in cups), so they could even overtake us tomorrow. And of course, who can forget that dreadful Friday night in September 2003? Yes, sorry, that one. Can I just remind Hartlepool fans about 7 May 1994, lest they should get a bit cocky (don’t worry about it, Town fans, it doesn’t involve us).

When the fixtures came out this year, Hartlepool was the first date we looked for, which would normally be a sign that something had gone badly wrong. The underlying reason, of course, was because the recently-arisen notion that Hartlepool are in any way a better prospect than us needed to be stamped on quite hard. It still does.

Of the three defectors, Carl Magnay will definitely not play – he has done his anterior cruciate ligament (aka knee) and will be out for several months. Carl is a north-easterner, and felt a move to County Durham was nearer home for him, or so he said. Why this is a consideration when your career is so precious and short, nobody has ever explained - he’s got the whole rest of his life to sit looking at that beautiful coastline with people with the same funny accent. He seemed in rather a hurry to get back there, if you ask me - it always seemed fairly likely that we’d be above them within a couple of years (ok, hindsight helps).

Toto’s departure will at least be a relief to commentators, although if you can say "fish ’n’ chips" (which round here we should really be able to do), I don’t know why you can’t say "Toto Nsiala". A sensitive kind of bloke for a footballer, by moving to Hartlepool Toto has, oddly, risked a hairy couple of games against his old fans. What’s worse, it looks like he’ll have to suffer that indignity dressed in cerise.

Toto did seem to be trying to avoid playing us by getting sent off twice in two games but he peaked too early - his suspensions are spent I would be quite upset if I thought Toto had allowed a sickening racist comment from a single moron at Halifax to gain more purchase on his future direction than the adulation of 10,000 fans at Wembley. We can never really know how much that played a part, but he made his rather odd career move for some reason, and he’s a Hartlepool player now so that’s that. He did seem to be trying to avoid playing us recently by getting sent off twice in two games, but he peaked too early – his suspensions are now spent.

Podge leaving us for the Pools is another enigma. The old "We’ve got Amond" song was such a memorable and evocative part of that unsurpassed Wembley day that he too is an ineradicable part of the legend. That he didn’t like being offered only a one-year deal after earlier in the year being offered two, seems to be the widely-accepted reason for his departure. So, to recap, rather than take a one-year contract at a club where he was an absolute hero, he was swayed by the miniscule risk that it would be the last year’s football he was ever offered, and he took two years somewhere where they don’t know him from Adam. Well, OK, it’s his life. We wanted him to stay, but our forward line this year seems quite good, and that has considerably softened the blow.

Barry Whittleton wisely invokes us to "show some class" and give the returning duo a great reception. I entirely agree, and aspiring to his magnanimity, I will give it a go. Before the kick-off, that is. Once the reunion is done and that whistle goes, I’m afraid Mary Poppins ends and tribal warfare resumes.

Changing the subject, I see my moaning about Town not being given penalties last week did the trick. Having gained six points this week while creating scarcely a shot on target, football’s natural biorhythms suggest we’re gearing up to either get, or give someone, a stuffing. I just wish I knew which.

For us, Josh Gowling is touch and go with a back injury, and the rest are OK.
For them, the engine room will be without the calming influence of Nicky Featherstone, suspended after being sent off against Luton in midweek.

UTM