HARTLEPOOL UNITED F.C. SOUTH EAST POOLIES

Match report: Brentford V Pools

Pools kicked towards the Ealing Road terrace in the first half. The game kicked-off and Brentford looked a little unsure at the back in the early stages. Brentford had an early chance after 2 mins.

From an early stage, it looked as if the referee was going to be a little bit pedantic with his decisions. He was constantly having to direct the players taking a throw-in, as to where he believed the ball had originally gone out. 'Pools had a good chance to open the scoring themselves after 7 minutes.

However, on the counter after 8 minutes, Clayton Donaldson blazed a shot over the bar for Brentford, the first of many from many bad shots from Donaldson during the match. Pools had a good chance with a cross on 9 minutes. A chance for Brentford on 11 minutes meant Sam Collins had to make a good tackle to clear the ball out. Pools had another good chance on 14 mins.

Then probably came the worst miss of the game. Donaldson again had an opportunity to score, he'd made a run into the box, was one-on-one with the keeper and he shot, but the shot was very poor and went well wide. In all fairness, Donaldson perhaps should have done better. Donaldson then had another chance to score on 19 minutes, but he overrrun the ball.

Another shot on 26 mins went well wide and perhaps should have done better as well. And then on 27 minutes, Donaldson won a free kick on 28 minutes and looked as if he went down a little too easily. It was a bad decision by the referee.

Flinders made a vital save from a Brentford attack on 28 minutes, which quite possibly could have given Brentford the lead then. A chorus of "Micky Barron's Blue and White Army" rang around the away end of 35 mins for the first time. Austin had to clear another Donaldson chance on 45 mins. 0-0 seemed to be a fair result at half time.

 
HALF-TIME: Brentford 0 Hartlepool 0

Pools kicked towards the Brook Terrace in the second half. On 47 mins, Brentford won a free kick, but the incoming shot was woeful. Poole had a good run on 52 mins. Pools made their first substitution on 60 mins. Brown came off and Boyd came on.

It wasn't long after that that Brentford announced that they had failed in their bid to attract an attendance of 10,000 by reducing their prices for bothe Clubs. The final attendance was 6,352 - a decent effort, but well short in the end.

However on some occasions, it seemed Flinders had problems taking goal kicks at moments during the game. A couple of goal kicks ended up out of the ground.

As the game, went on, you wondered whether this would end 0-0 like last year's match or whether 'Pools could punish Brentford's inability to finish and possibly nick three points.

And then, out of nowhere, came probably one of the most bizarre five minutes of football I have seen. Brentford made a run into the box on 83 minutes. Flinders initally went the right to cover the ball, but he ended up pushing it past his shoulder and it ended rolling into the corner of the net. A terrible mistake by Flinders, especially when he had made a couple of excelllent saves during the game to keep us in the game.

It is at this time that someone might have thought that it would need a miracle to get back into this game now. And then Sam Collins shot into the right hand corner sent the Pools fans into raptures. We thought that this was a genuine Christmas miracle.

But then came Nightmare on Elm Street. On 85 mins 'Pools were deemed to have given away a dubious penalty. Evan Horwood was adjudged to have brought down Diagouraga in the box. Gary Alexander eventually took the penalty and Flinders saved.

Was this a miracle? No, it wasn't. Alexander converted the rebound and Brentford stole the three points.

In reflection, terrible mistakes by Flinders and yet another bad refereeing decision would have cost Pools from a hard-fought point, which 'Pools should maybe have deserved due to the inability of Brentford to finish their chances.

Full Time: Brentford 2 - 1 Hartlepool

Report by Sam Sengelow