HARTLEPOOL UNITED F.C. SOUTH EAST POOLIES

Match report: Swindon V Pools

If anybody from the local Trading Standards Office was watching this game they might have been tempted to charge both teams with false advertising as the first 45 minutes didn't resemble football too much ! It was about as entertaining as a party political broadcast, and went a long way to showing why Swindon are almost certainly going to be in Division 2 next season.
 
For all the possession that the home team enjoyed their main attacking ideas seemed to consist of launching long balls towards the Pools end and hoping that they would get a free kick close to the box or that their man-mountain centre forward, who couldn't trap a bag of cement and had the turning circle of an aircraft carrier, would manage to produce something. To be fair their defence wasn't exactly busy because Pools front six in their now familiar 4-5-1 formation consisted entirely of midfield players with Andy Monkhouse as the target man. The collection of Pools strikers - I use the term loosely -warming the bench must have been boosted by this vote of confidence from Mick Wadsworth. They didn't seem particularly upset when they were jogging up and down in front of the Pools fans, a couple of them finding time to wave to friends in the stands.
 
The game drifted aimlessly along until the Swindon keeper in a moment of utter madness decided to roll the ball to nobody in particular and Evan Horwood promptly rolled it back past him from about 30 yards. It was like something you would expect to see in the local Sunday morning league when a lot of overweight blokes are running off several gallons of lager and a curry from Saturday night ! The rest of the first half passed off without incident which wasn't entirely surprising bearing in mind what had happened until then.
 
Half time : Swindon 0 Pools 1
 
Pools started the second half much brighter and seemed to be pretty much in control of matters until Gary Liddle committed a form of GBH on a home player right in front of both benches with both feet off the ground. As the average-at-best referee also happened to be in the area the inevitable red card followed. I can only assume that Liddle had become as bored as most of us and fancied watching "Sir Jeff" and his mates on Soccer Saturday. Pools held out for a while but conceded an equaliser from a right wing cross which only a Swindon player seemed to be interested in heading.
 
Swindon increased the pace of their game following the goal and put 10 man Pools under more pressure, but although they got the ball into our area with increasing frequency they never really troubled Scott Flinders. Pools changed the personnel as the game wore on and players tired but the overall nature of the refs performance was best illustrated when he booked Ritchie for hesitating over a throw in, a complete joke ! One Pools substitution that seemed to provoke more feelings than the others was when Bjornsson came on. He appears to be the perfect definition of a "marmite" player and it wasn't hard to see why as he made their main striker seem quite polished ( see paragraph 2 ).
 
I suppose that we should be pleased with an away point after 3 successive defeats but our performance had a distinct end of season feeling about it,and with away games at Sheff Wed, Southampton and Charlton to come Pools will need to give the travelling support a better reason than this display to get on the road.
 
Full time : Swindon 1 Pools 1
 
Small confession to make. My coverage of the second half was limited due to extra beer consumption at half time, which I feel was perfectly understandable after the first 45 minutes

MOM- Sam Collins

 
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