I've just read somewhere that some deluded....and hilleterhate....fool has said that he travelled to watch Pools at Bournemouth and he was the only away supporter there!!!!
I know we've had posts on here before about low numbers at away games but I'm certain that this 'game' has never been mentioned before....I do know we played Bournemouth away in an FA Cup replay in about 1988 that loads went to....but surely this game he alludes to doesn't exist apart from in his pitch black space he knows as his brain!!!!
Or can anyone correct me and say this game does exist and he, as a 16 year old, was the only one who attended????

Both teams were in league 1 for three seasons in 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13

B'muff 0 Pools 1
B'muff 1 Pools 2
B'muff 1 Pools 1

pretty good results away against a premiership giant!

I think he's saying this was in the early 80's....on a Tuesday night!!!!

They were both also in division 4 for a couple of seasons until B'muff were promoted in 1982.

16 Sep 1980 (Tues) AFC Bournemouth 1 Hartlepool United 0 (League Division Four)
att. 2413

looks possible.

If this happened it would of been at that game in 1980, but I'm sure a few lads went down to that, I know personally of a few who were looking to go, not sure if they did. If they did , fair play, as that is some pilgrimage , especially in those days, before flexible working, credit cards etc.The only game I know of were there was only one away supporter ( obviously there could of been more there, an old bloke or an exile living locally who kept quiet during the game etc ) and that was a Friday night game at Crewe in early 80s. This lad a mate of mine ,reckons he was the only one there, as he went on his own, none of his usual away day mates fancied it, so off he went on the train. He knew there would be one other pools fan there, an old bloke who never missed a game. He never saw the old bloke during the poorly attended game that as usual ended in defeat, but spoke to him a couple months later at a home game towards the end of the season , the old bloke told my mate he had only missed one away game that season, Crewe away, therefore my mate came to the conclusion he was the only one there.


To put a cherry on top, it was a Friday night and there were bouncers on the door of the pub near the ground. My mate went to go in for a pint, he was wearing a denim jacket, the bouncers asked him " are you an away fan?" he said he was , and they said " well you can't come in".

The was a postman in Hartlepool who never missed an away game.

John Dowson ? was he a Pools fan? I know over last 20 years he racked up around 400 non league games a season , he is getting on a bit now like and don't think he can do anything like that figure anymore. Used to go to non league games on Friday nights in Cambridgeshire on his moped etc, or park his moped at Darlo railway station or near a National Express bus station, fanatic or a nutter ?

Apart from anything else, how can anyone 'know' that he's the only Poolie in the ground? In the mid-70s-early 80s I was based in Leeds and went to quite a few away games with my girlfriend. We always went in the seats with the home fans (no segregation then), never wore colours and stuck to a quiet smirk if Pools scored. There was almost never a Pools 'end' in those days except at Feethams.

We made a weekend of it in Bournemouth once but that was definitely a sunny Saturday afternoon. Pools won 1-0 and if I remember rightly Bob Newton was the scorer.

Not sure of his name but my old man may know and will report back.
Above and beyond the call of duty but mad as a hatter i would say.

The non league bloke is John Dowson, the Crewe bloke had the initials DH

The lowest I have been in was a Sunday morning kick off at Swindon in 1985, around 10 Pools. Me and my mate once hitch hiked down to RAF Church Fenton in July 1980 school holidays to see Sunderland v Lincoln behind closed doors. We were the only fans there and at the end me and my marra , a few top brass from the RAF and both teams got together for a big team photos. My marra wrote to the Northern Echo and got a copy. I am there with Skinhead, DM's , Fred Perry as is my marra with an England top on, alongside the Sunderland promotion team that were flying off to Norway the next day and a Lincoln side containing a young Mick Harford and Glenn Cockerill. Lincoln won 2-1 by the way. We got the train back to York, and hitched a lift from York to Hartlepool off a bloke in a fish van delivering fish, it stank and we had to wait in the van whilst he delivered to addresses in Yarm and Billingham , happy days.

I later lived and worked in Swindon and one day a Swindon supporter brought a newspaper cutting into work , it was a story about falling gates at football, and showed a pic of the away end at Swindon with 3 people in it , guess who were the visitors that day? Reckon that game was either 1982 or 83.

I worked with John Dawson for many years as a Postman. He was/is indeed a football obsessed Nutter/fanatic, but he was no supporter of Pools. The Mags were his favourite team but he'd go anywhere to watch anyone, including Pools. The most remarkable thing about him was that he didn't drive! He went to local games on his moped and everywhere else on the train, or tried to cadge a lift off anyone. He once tried to bribe me with a curry to take him to Edinburgh to watch Hibernian. I do believe that one day years ago he managed to attend three games in one day, but that might just be legend!

That's the man, or should I say legend. Definitely did 3 in one day, wouldn't surprise me if he did 4, with the creation of the groundhopper weekends that was easy as the games were staggered in order to do just that, I trust John did it before that when it was more difficult.

I have just spoken to my old man who can confirm it was John Dawson. He said exactly what Mr Bossa has just said about him......yes a legend i think.

Did he mention the weather?

This is him

https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/i ... -1-8686960

"he went to a Newcastle match, away at Plymouth. He set off early on his trusted Honda but he took a wrong turning at York. It meant he was running late. The journey became even more bizarre when he parked up at Leicester for the night and found a policeman examining his bike. “He wanted to know what a Honda with a Durham plate was doing in Leicester at midnight. I told him I was on the way to Plymouth,” said John. Later in the journey, he had to push the bike up a hill it couldn’t manage in Bath but did get to Plymouth in time to see Newcastle win 4-3.

What a story brilliant.
Honda should give him a new bike as thats the best advert ever for a vehicle.

If he went through Bath, it suggests he must of taken all the back roads as well , down the Fosse Way, in the pitch dark, what a bloke. Would make a good film.

I have a friend who lives in Newcastle who makes and edits short fillums , she asked me a few years ago if I had ideas on local knowledge of interesting subjects or characters for subject matter, I mentioned Mr. Dawson would be ideal material for an interview, the tales he could probably tell of all his lengthy travelling on his moped in the middle of winter etc.
Good book material I guess too. Somebody on here was kind enough to get his address for me, but it never materialised. Shame but he may not be the type whoed share them willingly.

I suppose its more about would people want to watch it, I imagine it would appeal to only a niche market, you never know though. Me and my dad once met a bloke in Manchester who was a scriptwriter, he had overheard me and my dad talking in the Hare and Hounds. Our next port of call was the pub next door , where he broke the ice by saying, we'll have to stop meeting like this or something similar. He said to us " when I heard you talking ( or probably shouting) at the bar, I thought to myself, here are the Likely Lads". He thought it was quirky that a father and son were in Manchester for no other reason than to visit 30 pubs over two days. We had told him we often did it, leave the wives and kids in my case and go away on a pub crawl, we had done the same in Leeds, Liverpool and Derby prior to Manchester. He wasn't getting much work at the time and said he was going to submit a script based on us to Channel 4. A year later he telephoned my dad for a catch up and said that it had been knocked back but that he would keep on trying. Obviously the old man is dead now, and last time I saw Pete the Scriptwriter in Manchester he was looking rather dapper as though his luck had changed and he never really mentioned it. Shame I was looking forward to playing myself and getting paid to drink real ale.

I would imagine any film about Mr Dawson would be rather dull. He didn't appear to have any real life apart from his football. If he wasn't travelling to Lincoln, Exeter or Dumbarton he was working every hour he could on overtime. I always got the impression the football wasn't the most important thing, but that planning and travelling to every corner of the country gave his life some purpose. He could just as well have been a pigeon fanatic or a train spotter or some such obsessive pastime.

Yeah its funny that, these people love the same game as you, but you would rarely want to spend more than a minute with them. In fact in my experience they tend to shun you, the cheeky kernts, Roy Cropper off Coronation Street has the perfect groundhopper profile.

When in my early twenties a pal and I decided to go on a golfing holiday in Scotland, in a fortnight we drove right across the country playing 2 courses most days, morning and afternoon, a pint or two in between, and an evening on the drink sometimes nightclubbing too. From Fat Sam's in Dundee to Jackie O's in Kirkaldy. We visited and played in Musselbrough, Edinburgh, Stirlling, Perth, Crieff, Kirkaldy, St.Andrews, Dundee, Motherwell, Dunfermline, Glasgow, Helensbro, Ayr, Calendar and Auchterader.

I'm sure we didn't quite appreciate it at the time, but great memories, laughs and beautiful scenery.

John is a Newcastle fan and still travelling the length and breadth of the country as well as the channel isles


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Sounds great that, apart from the Golf

A few of us regularly get the train somewhere that has enough pubs to sustain an all day sesh of real ale. Somewhere no longer than a couple of hours on the train ie Derby, Burton, Lincoln, Leicester, Sheffield, Matlock etc.

Now all our kids are getting older we should be looking at weekends in places further away really. I fancy Norwich, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol. Anyone know of any others?

Brighton further afield, and Huddersfield closer to home. Never been to Norwich on a pub crawl but it sounds perfect. Of course Nottingham is right up there, arguably a top 4 real ale destination.