TMF are playing Christmas songs - just seen David Bowie with Bing Crosby singing Little Drummer Boy.

The fact it's nearly December is also a bit of a giveaway.

Next week after we beat Fleetwood it will be:

WE'RE WALKING ALONG
SINGING A SONG
WALKING IN A WILSON WONDERLAND
THERE'S ONLY ONE DANNY WILSON
ONLY ONE DANNY WILSON
WE'RE WALKING ALONG
SINGING A SONG
WALKING IN A WILSON WONDERLAND !

IF we beat Fleetwood.

Are you nervous, Mr Gaunt, after the Cod Army lost to a Unibond side in the trophy ?

I'm always nervous when the opposition have a forward line.

Yeah Leeds have Beckford, Beechio, Christie etc.

Fleetwood have.....who ?

Yes, it's the FA Cup, but on paper it should be something like Gainsborough really.....at least from our point of view.

How long did you say you've been supporting Pools for

Stop being arrogant.

I hope no Fleetwood players read this as it will fire them up.

I've been pissed off when opposition teams have said that about us and shown us a lack of respect. And now your doing the same to them.

I don't mean to sound arrogant. I have the fullest respect for Fleetwood Town and it is an achievement for them to get to this stage.

But we have to look at this from the most professional of points of view, seeing as we are the professional football club and Fleetwood, with all due respect are not.

Pools' aim for Saturday will be to make sure they do not avoid a humiliating Cup exit and the way we must do that is to produce the most professional performance on Saturday, even if it means clearly demonstrating the gap between us and Fleetwood through fitness and class.

If we play our stongest possible game and give them an equal balance of respect, we will go through to the next round with ease as professionally as possible, so us as the supporters won't have to sweat out what should, to all intents and purposes be, an easier test than we possibly could have had in this round.

A place in the 3rd round is at stake. We can not afford to be arrogant and complacent, which I know Pools have been in the past as a whole (exc. Tamworth), but we should be purely professional. That's whay will help us get through this tie.

Really who do Fleetwood have up front ? Can you name any of their strikers ?

Since 1990.

Pools' aim for Saturday will be to make sure they do not avoid a humiliating Cup exit and the way we must do that is to produce the most professional performance on Saturday, even if it means clearly demonstrating the gap between us and Fleetwood through fitness and class.

Are you suggesting that pools will go there with the intention of losing?

I'm wondering whether i should make the effort to go now!!

We have a better than average chance of getting beat by a team playing in the biggest game of their lives. Their motivation will be immense and they will be backed by a very vorciferous ground full of local support. If the team go there with the attitude you have displayed we will get mullered. A couple of years ago we played Tamworth who went on to finish bottom of the conference that season. Our heroes laid down and allowed them to trample of over us and we got stuffed.

The FA Cup is littered by arrogant teams getting beat by so called minnows.

No, of course not.

All I was trying to say is that history has shown in the FA Cup that we can not underestimate the possibility of a non-League side killing giants (Hereford etc).

But Pools have played non-League opposition before away from home and come through it by being professional (i.e. Burton).

right this could be a banana skin,the first 15-20 minutes could be crucial we need to score if not we are more than likely to get nervous and they will grow in confidence,the longer it goes on without us scoring the more chance we blow it,it's happened before and there is no guarantee it won't happen again,look at the loids riding high at the top of the bottom division and they get beat,where pools are concerned do not count your chickens

Nobosy had heard of Ronnie Radford before he stuck one up the skunks.

...and how old are you?

Andy Bell ex Wycombe Wanderers and York City.

So you've been going since you were 0?

and Erasure

just realised due to us living in a multicultural society and this board being in the public domain,should'nt this post be renamed "you can tell it's getting near winterval" so as not to offend ethnic minorities.

At the end of the day, Tamworth happened. For Darlo, it was Hornchurch, Farnborough and Droylsden. For WBA, it was us. As long as the Cup exists, so will upsets - treat it like we treat every game

Well, actually, no, if you've put like that, it's not right.

I've been going since I was 4/5.

My first match was Gillingham away in 1994/5 and I've kept going ever since.

So is the answer 18?

Yeah

My recollection of footy at the age of 5 was boooooring, OK to play, but watch it?... support a team at 4/5...should we say 9 to 10 before you get a grasp of what's really going on from my observations.

Or in POKs case say 19 or 20 so he is not quite there yet

and oasis

I love it when people say that, went to my first game at 4, supported them since i was 4 n all this rubbish!

As if you can remember a football game when you we're 4!

I'm sorry but you can't.

I can't remember anything from 4, birthdays, holidays etc.

Your a rarf, end of.

I put Gainsborough 1, Pools 5 in the prediction league last year. Nobody believed I'd deliberately made a conservative estimate.

Duly noted John

By the sounds of it, some people are quaking in their boots......because it's the Cup, and all that.

We should, I repeat, SHOULD, be fine.

I accepted an invitation to go to Fleetwood on Saturday because on the whole the odds are good that we we could win.
If I thought there was any risk at all of us losing to a non-League side again, I would shave, shall we just say......reconsidered accepting the invitation, especially after the journey I shall have to make on Saturday from the South.

FFS POK, shut the fook up on this!! you're making me nervous!!

I noticed Breedon was spouting off in similar fashion before they played Droylsden, you know what happened next.......

so if the worst does happen does that make pok a jonah

Calm down, Salty. What have you got to be nervous about ?

Don't worry about it.

Yeah and you know why Droylden happened didn't you ?

Because they weren't professional on the night and they gave them too much respect, by all means give them respect but I hope we don't them up on a pedestal.

Are you going on Saturday Mr POK?

Yes I should be.

If we can get a ticket that is.

Not got one yet? Don't think there's many left.

A good friend who happens to live about 10 mins away by train living in Rainham is kindly trying to see whether we can get tickets using his mate's season ticket.

Only one ticket per season ticket though, so you'll need a season ticket each.

Well, I don't have a season ticket, so the earliest the general public can phone up to buy them is from Wednesday morning.

Phone up?

If there's any left there'll be a queue down the road so they'll not be answering the phone or selling tickets to anybody who isn't there in person.

Unless I could ask someone very nicely who lives in Hartlepool if they were willing to queue up and buy a ticket in exchange for a drink at the pub on Saturday ?

But I'll see whether the Rainham Poolie has managed to sort that out for us.

erm getting knocked out of the cup, and some of our fans having a blase attitude about it??!!

spells disaster

I bet you remembered it like it was tomorrow

He was chucked out of the ground, he climbed up on top his mams head at half time.