The alleged story is they went after Jack Ross, got told no but Hartley is worth a look. I can’t remember but I think it was either Rust or Bevington recommended him to Raj, who claims he was very impressed with the interview.

People took quite fondly to Hartley’s opening interviews. Hard, to the point and a very take no sh!t approach. Thing is, his persona and approach towards the fans was never Hartlepool United. Any successful manager for us in the past 10 year has played a blinder with the fans.

You can't say Hartley didn't have a good record just before we picked him up.

Thing was...those teams he managed had big budgets.

yes, but didn,t harrison have one in the welsh league also. different leagues, different standards.

DC allegedly has a big budget at Stickyport. It's what you do with the budget that matters.

Did Hartley spend his budget wisely ????? It don't look like he did but I must stress I don't know what that budget was/is and I haven't found anybody who is able to tell me.

Years and years ago they used to say "you'll never win anything unless you have a Scotsman in your side". Hartley still thinks that and followed up with multiple Scots in his side.
The rest is now history.......thankfully.

doubt hartley or a single fan expected the players and the team to be as bad as they turned out to be. all hartley knew was scottish football with the tippy tappy kid possibly suggesting players he knew nothing of or even their names. possibly an english version of hartley getting a job in scotland would do the same by bringing english players up to join him.