HARTLEPOOL

A Positive

I’m going to start on a positive. We’d bought a ticket for our son as he, like quite a few others, no longer has a season ticket. He wasn’t well so we’d assumed we’d have to write off the £22.00. That was until someone in the Quadrangle suggested the club is sympathetic in such circumstances and would give a refund, which they did. Well done OUFC.
As for the Quadrangle – not so positive. I only ventured in because I have a cold that made me incredibly thirsty and needed to neck a quick pint. £4.30 for Thatchers Gold is a rip off and we never did get to the bottom of what percentage of the extortionate profit made by Stadco goes to the club did we? But desperate measures and all that.

And on the subject of the Quadrangle – any chance of a better speaker system so that the guest / legend of the day can actually be heard?

Lots of negatives

Even a miserable little draw against the bottom club would have brought us our best run of the season. (Yes, we’ve set the bar pretty low). But no, we contrived to lose against the bloody team at the bottom.

I declared a couple of weeks back that I needed to leave the “Appleton Out” thing alone because it was blatantly obvious that he is not going anywhere anytime soon. I now really wish I had not said that because I just cannot leave it alone. Not after this non-display. Not after his post match comments. Not given the sad and sorry state OUR (the fans) football team is in. Not given the mix of (mostly inner) fury and apathy that has infected the majority of our rapidly dwindling fan base as a result of all this.

Last time I declared that whilst still having big problems up the other end of the pitch, I was fully confident that we won’t be relegated because the defence was sorted. The defence will of course still have an off day or two and when that does happen, even if it is just one mistake which results in a goal being conceded, such is our lack of striking prowess, that we’re then quite likely to lose. I still think we’ll stay up but now have significantly less confidence that this will be so.

Just past the half hour mark Joe Skarz cocked up and allowed Jon Franks to get clear and hammer a shot goalwards which Ryan Clarke did well to keep out. Unfortunately Ryan Bird had spotted that there might be a chance going begging, reacted marginally quicker than Jake Wright and so got to the loose ball first.

Other than us forcing Scott Flinders to make a couple of relatively easy saves in the first minute or two, the visitors had looked the more threatening. Clarke had been fully extended in tipping a pile driver over the bar and another effort had rattled our woodwork. By the close of play we had managed to hit the frame of the goal ourselves a couple of times but overall our attacking efforts can best be described as inept, as could our performance as a whole.

There’s often talk of us losing the midfield battle – we didn’t lose it because there wasn’t one. No one turned up in midfield. It wasn’t a horror show, more of a no show. Michael Collins had an awful game and Josh Ruffels was nowhere near being the more positive footballer we saw in the second half against Plymouth.

Yawn – again we did everything too slowly. Again there was no understanding and no noticeable partnerships. Up front, much as we admire Patrick Hoban for his whole hearted efforts and are willing him to score game after game (ad infinitum?), dare it be whispered that the truth of the matter may be that he just isn’t good enough for League Two? Sorry, but this has to be a debate that needs airing. And my Torquay source has told me that John Campbell, although he has a good shot on him, hasn’t been great and doesn’t add a lot really. So much for our recruitment policy.

It really is dire all round. Peter who sits two seats away from me, opined that Oxford must have provided the worst value for season ticket holders of any League club over the past five years. My brother then calculated that our season tickets in the SSU have so far cost us £13.60 an Oxford goal at the Kassam. (Blimey, I’m wondering how York fans are feeling.)

I cannot for the life of me see that the entertainment being served up at home is any better than that under Chris Wilder. There are still one or two who feel that given time (how long, I ask) Mapp will magically come good, but this number is dwindling rapidly, as are our paying customers as we become a hollow shell of a football club. Well that is what it looks like to me sat in a ground with only just over 4,000 present with no belief, no atmosphere whatsoever and where at times the most noise that can be heard are the players’ voices, it’s that quiet in the stands. Although I’ll give the East Stand their due, they did try their best at times to get a bit of something going.

I left at the end of game without shouting a word although I am led to believe a few hung around and made their opinions known to those in the Directors’ seating. I’d done so at half time. I don’t think I was rude. I think I said something like, “if you don’t sort this out soon you won’t have any paying customers left”.

When I got home (after a post match drink and meal) just after 11 o’clock, I got the following text: (I won’t say who from but I don’t think he’s the sort of person who downs a few shorts before bed time). “I have concluded we have the worst manager ever to grace the Football League! SHIT, SHIT, SHIT. Did you hear his interview? Crappleton seemed to think we did well and were unlucky against a good side! EXTRAORDINARY!”

Yes, I had heard the interview and was screaming at the radio. I replied to the text saying I needed a quick whisky before bed after that. In my reply I also used the following words and phrases – f**k off / twattish / cloud cuckoo land / deluded / brainless / moronic. I then got another reply that read, “I too have hit the malt whisky”. Just look what this is doing to us.

At work the following morning I got chatting to a fellow season ticket holder, someone who I consider to be a mild man. He was still seething big time as were many on social media and all comments were justified imho. I particularly liked this one from YellowHoods, it was a message to Hartlepool, “You came, you very quickly saw how crap we were, you conquered”.

But all these views count for nothing. It’s all just white noise. We’re white noise. We don’t mean a thing or count for anything or have any opinion that is worth a bucket of shit. Except perhaps for a few tiny little things such as:

• We’re the ones who spend hundreds of pounds a season coming to the soulless Kassam to watch a football club we still love despite all it does to us. This money pays wages and helps keep the club going.
• We’ll still be coming even if/when (take your pick) the latest owner’s grand plan of taking us on a journey fails to deliver. (Weren’t we supposed to be playing a style of football that would take us straight through L1 into the Championship? More evidence to support our theory of delusion, your honour.)
• We’re the ones (well some of us) who travelled to Gateshead twice last season in sub zero temperatures in mid week to eventually watch gutsy battling back to the wall football. (This is reality).

Without the fans in the ground football at this level is nothing. Oxford United wouldn’t exist. We have not got a product that a trillion little sheep wearing Aon shirts somewhere in Asia are interested in. We are what we are. And we, the fans, are it. We are the heart of the football club. We don’t stand there with our hands in our pockets pretending all is well when it blatantly obviously is not. Furthermore, we’re putting money in, not taking money out like Michael Appleton, Mark Ashton and Derek Fazakerley. Daryl Eales is putting money in. Logic says we should be on the same side as Eales. So please listen Daryl. We should not be in this situation given the financial investment you have made to date. You’ve been let down sir along with us committed lifelong United fans.

Back to the match, and referee Pat Miller. The penalty he awarded should never have been given as it was as clear a case of ball to hand as you’ll see. Afterwards Hartlepool fans were saying they would have been aggrieved if it had been given against them as the ball just bounced up and hit the hand of Johnny Mullins. It didn’t really matter 1-0 /2-0, whatever. We weren’t going to score.

And then there was the time when a visiting player fell over because the pitch is what it is, but a free kick was awarded. Miller also failed to apply the rule that a player who has been treated for an injury has to go off. He was poor but that doesn’t mean I took any pleasure in the fact that it soon became clear he was seriously injured and in agony when he went down. His career is now over, although he was going to retire anyway at the end of this season. I wish him a speedy recovery. Some though felt it necessary to give him some really nasty abuse as he was stretchered off. Callous in the extreme and a senseless thing to do to as groups of people tend to look after their own. Referees will talk to each other and word will soon get around.

I’m also wondering if the pitch was a causal factor. Time to get the Health and Safety inspectors in?

So on to Shrewsbury and I’ve not given up all hope; we’ve got some decent players if not a decent manager. Plus Danny Hylton is back. But however well, or not so well, we do between now and the end of the season, for me there should be no way back for one man – so, APPLETON OUT. Should never have been in. Why we’ve got into this situation only Darryl Eales will be able to tell us.

SHREWSBURY

A positive

Our pre-match haunt when we visit the Greenhous Meadow is the Prince of Wales, a free house with a bowling green out back surrounded by seats that used to reside at Gay Meadow. Pauses whilst another wave of nostalgia pours over me. The Prince is a bit over a mile from Shrewsbury Town’s latest home with a good range of quality ales at under £3 a pint and well worth a visit.

No goals, no points – so more negatives

Very difficult on both counts when following Oxford United

The game had hardly started before we were one down and at one down we know we’re pretty much f****d. We’d not scored in the last two games and had managed just two in the last five with a common question in local pub quizzes now being “when was the last time an Oxford United forward scored?”

From the very first second the Shrews came at us and as is often the case, were that bit sharper than we were. Wright, who didn’t have one of his better games, wasn’t sharp enough not to give the penalty away.

As the game settled down into some sort of pattern it became obvious that we were not being overrun and the hosts were playing at nowhere near the standard they had shown at the Kassam. That said I would have liked us to have done things a bit quicker and it wasn’t as if we were creating chances galore. The returning Hylton was however making a noticeable difference.

We ended up playing the last 30 minutes or so against ten men and in this period had a lot of possession but it was that oh so familiar theme of failing to score. There were times a plenty when we just didn’t seem to want to get the shot away. That could be down to confidence or perhaps the chances are not quite as on as seen from our view in the stands. We’re becoming desperate, but even when we did have a shot at goal we seemed incapable of getting a decent strike on the ball. It was all a bit pathetic really even if the overall performance was much improved when compared to our previous outing.

If goals do not come we will go down. At present I can’t see where they are coming from. I don’t think Hoban is quite good enough. Much as his hold up play is to be admired he is not quick enough or tall enough. He’s no goal machine nor do I think he can ever be turned into one in the Football League. All I can say about Armand Gnanduillet is, can someone please explain? James Roberts is too young to have any massive burden flung on his shoulders and isn’t getting much time on the pitch anyway. Hylton has stopped scoring and Will Hoskins is a failed gamble within our failing experiment; probably quite a costly one too. But hey, money doesn’t seem to be any object here. And the rest of the team are not likely to chip in any time soon.

However, although my confidence has somewhat waned yet again I still think we’ll stay up. So I must have some kind of belief that someone will step up to the plate and start finding the back of the net and that the defence will pull itself together into the solid unit it was in our recent reasonable run of results.

Even allowing for the fact Shrewsbury are second and have lost at home just once this season and the improvement referred to above, I’m still quite disappointed with our display. Of course it is not easy against 10 men but we didn’t score against them but they managed it against us. Wright again didn’t cover himself in glory in conceding the free kick. When Liam Lawrence stepped up I thought there was a good chance of it going in. He can hit a football properly. If it had been us taking it in similar circumstances I would not have had much hope that it would have found its way into the back of the net.

And despite the Shrews record I thought they were vulnerable and if we had really got at them could easily have come away with something. I don’t think it would have taken a lot to have got the crowd on the team’s backs. At 1-0 up when the tiniest of errors were made by the home side the groans and moans were audible. As Mark said to me at the time, “they don’t know suffering”. And when there were slight cock ups in the Shrews defence there was plenty of arguing amongst their number. And there were some cock ups. Again it was evident that in League Two it only requires half decent balls into opponents’ penalty areas for half chances to materialise. I would have liked to have seen their reaction if we had scored. But of course we didn’t.

Our remaining games are getting bigger and bigger. Indeed I would go as far as to say that they are probably the most important in our history after the Wembley play-off final.

It goes without saying that it is imperative that we stay up. Then what? For me, “Appleton Out”, if he’s still in, which he will be. But the problems we’ll still have are huge. Our debts now are at least £12m I believe and growing by the day. Supposedly they can just be written off, which I don’t get at all. But even if we were to break even we’d not have much of a playing budget with an annual rent to FK of I’m now told £700k. That’s scandalous but a contract is a contract. I know I keep occasionally coming back to this but it cannot be ignored. Our football club has been, and is quite possibly being again, sold down the river however well meant some of the intentions past and present.

Again it is all quiet on progress in attempting to buy the Kassam or move to Water Eaton. Is this all pie in the sky just like the journey Firoz said he would take us on? We’ve largely been on a journey of suffering for what seems like decades. It has to stop but I can’t see how.