I must admit I wasn’t going to bother watching the match, a bit resigned to a defeat, but missus asked why not so I did. Boy did I enjoy that. I was anticipating a drop off of effort in the second half, but no, they ploughed on and battled away.
Steely lead by example and Menayese was a giant in defence…Joel Grey came on as sub and ran and harassed their senders ragged.
Looks like we’re not the only club with managerial problems, they’re onto their third manager this season and their fans aren’t happy.

said the same thing before the stockport game that a win at crawley was more important game. was sick of the radio tees commentators on about this win lose win lose thing. if we win half of the remaining games available we could be in the same finishing position as last season. we were better first half but in the second the side was excellent with getting closer to them and the passing improving. the locals did not sound very happy either.

knew a sunday league player that bets on football. if he is still doing it he must have made a bit last night. always bets on a team that gets hammered the game before and bets against the team who did the hammering. says he comes out well on top by the end of the season.

Great effort bring on the xmas fixtures.

Did i hear right that 128 of our loyal fans were there.
Hats off to you ladies and gentlemen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV1HUl2tdjA

Enjoy it while it last's.

agree even if a number were south east exiles. giving the weather i,d have thought twice popping down the road to bradford last night if pools were there.

Ever the optimist

It’s not hard to differentiate between you and a ray of sunshine..

not much to enjoy this season so lets milk it whilst we can. makes next week feel better than the last for sure.

Needed that win last night, got to try and follow it up with another one. Looked a nailed on nil nil last night but we took the chance we got. Looked a lot more organised.

I thought it would be a draw, but was pleasantly surprised.

Colchester lost.
Jackpot.
UTP

Least we showed some fight last night.

This is Hartlepool United I'm talking about remember, we've all seen it before far to often to get too optimistic.

Of the bottom six clubs our fixture is the most winnable next weekend, it would be a brilliant opportunity to get back to back wins. Hopefully our confidence has been boosted by last nights win and we can get another three points

We're not in the bottom 2, happy days p.s. Thanks Sutton United

actually we outfort them most of the game. you could tell they had an under 23 manager with all the sideways sideways slow slow quick slow they produced. are most of these blokes clones from an fa sausage factory.

I thought when the players were doing their warm, the Crawley team did not look as though they fancied it, whereas some of the pools side syill wore short sleeved shirts. It was similar to when pools played and beat Crystal Palace in the cup. In my mind Sterry was the difference in defence and an excellent first goal by Menayse and great corners for both goals by Cooke

Whether true or not i do not know. Just seen that crawley had a number of players out on friday night and that the whole team is available for transfer. If true we might have played em at the right time but thats not pools fault. Just on gates alone do they deserve a league club down there when just over 1700 home fans can be bothered turning up for an important game.

And just for once Lady Luck was wearing a blue and white. Sterry slipped early on allowing their player to pass to an unmarked forward in the area who smashed it over the bar. On another day that would have been in the top corner leaving us our usual goal down after not many minutes.

And just for once Lady Luck was wearing a blue and white shirt. Sterry slipped early on allowing their player to pass to an unmarked forward in the area who smashed it over the bar. On another day that would have been in the top corner leaving us our usual goal down after not many minutes.

Agreed. It was crucial to get our first away win and getting a clean sheet. What is absolutely vital is that we follow up a good performance with another one. This season the pattern has been one good followed by one bad.
Doncaster 2-1 win followed by 3-1 home loss to Carlisle

Grimsby 2-1 win followed by FA cup Draw and then 1-0 loss to Stevenage

Beat Harrogate in FA Cup and then get hammered 5-0 at home by Stockport

Beat Crawley 2-0 away........What happens against Newport on Saturday? Here's hoping.

We don't have enough stupid haircuts that's where we are going wrong.

We don't have enough stupid haircuts that's where we are going wrong.

Yeah that is very good point and I, for one, have no argument against it. Maybe KC can take the squad down to a creative barbers before next Saturday?

I also have the same view that we got lucky on this instance - but this isnt something we have carried at all this season... even Pools get dealt a good hand at times in the league ... unfortunately this season we just havnt had it. Maybe this is our little chance... get this good run of game under our belt and put some serious points back on the board and climb well away from the danger.

so did we just play them at the right time...

Coldest night in the season so far - alot of heads would of been put off before a single ball was kicked (southern softness)

one of Crawleys main attacking threats has been sold and is off in Jan to our next opponents

they have replaced their manager with for me.. a bad inexperienced guy (didnt rate him as a prem player either)

sounded like alot of key players where missing with the flu or injury

2 of their players (not sure if they where good / bench warmers) but got crocked inside 20 mins (again changes the dynamic of the game and the tactics)

add the dressing room unrest of all the squad being made available for transfer (the clubs a joke atm).

everything basically played into Pools hands and had we not won that game then i would of defintely being saying we are nailed on for the drop - its matches like that the surviving teams win and battle their way out the shit.

They are exactly the kind of games we need to be winning to give ourselves a chance. Can't believe after such a shit season we are not even in the bottom 2! Really hope we can follow it up on Saturday with another 3 points

can see us getting at least a point - we need to keep the team unchanged, if its possible. The Newport formation may alter the way KC sees it.

would like to see more of Odour and have him further up the pitch too

Funny that when other teams trot out excuses for losing to Hartlepool they're believed, but there's no such thing as bad luck when Pools get beat. Crawley beat Swindon 2-0 6 days before they played us. How many times this season have Pools had to change the line-up because of injuries? My favourite is Crawley couldn't play their normal game because it was too cold. Knew those Scottish players Hartley signed would come good at some point

think pools should be going into the game more confident than newport. they seem to be in freefall at the moment and pools will need to show something for the fans to forget the last home match. home games is where fans guage the side as for the majority its the only ones they see live.

i actually thought the Newport game was Away, got me dates mixed up - wow even more of a reason to win and put the last home game to bed and just forget...

hopefully this is our Torquay moment - the thrashing at home by them spurned us on last time - and tbh they where our biggest rivals at the time in the league due to position... Stockport for all the obvious reasons again seen as a rival... has to be a win this weekend now.. sack the predicted draw ha !

No, our rivals are the likes of Rochdale, Gillingham, Colchester. Stockport are minted and have a squad of quality players. Chalk and cheese, I'm afraid.

Or it could have been Pools played quite well.

I remember Gary Gibson putting the whole squad on the transfer list before a game at York. It was in some three team league in a competition I can't recall. All we had to do was score a goal, it didn't matter how many we got beat by, and we would of gone through....
We didn't score!

If I remember right didn't Alan Murray basically sack a player at half time during a 4-0 loss at Darlo back in the 90s? (Bennyworth?) I know he never played for us again. Bet Curle's had that urge once or twice!

thought that was the case with tummulty after the stockport game when radio tees reported him going round the ground applauding any fans that stayed that long. i was past the travellers rest by that time. was surprised to see him in the side again on friday were out of the games i,d seen him it was his best performance.

It was two poor teams competiting in a dire game of football, but at the end of the day we more than deserved the win, they were so poor we won at a canter, but let's be honest we weren't particularly great, we just battled and looked organised.id settle fir the same thing to happen at Rochdale hoping day.

Me too. When you look at some of the players Curle is still having to pick, workmanlike is the best Pools fans can hope for. Need more of the same against Newport on Saturday. They've made a poor start to the season (only 1 point above Crawley) so Pools should be looking for a positive result.

Given the severe limitations of the current squad, battling and being organized is the best we can hope for. I guess we also hope we play enough average teams to pick up enough points to avoid relegation. Third bottom would suit me fine.

I know it's a shot in the dark but our next six league games are winnable and we need to be looking for a fair haul of points from them.
Now wouldn't that be nice.

Yep, that would be nice. Some of the games could be described as "six pointers". Rochdale twice, Gillingham and Harrogate fall into that category in my view. We need plenty of battling and organization.

id like to hope we soon fall out of the mercy of the teams around us scenario - it got us out of trouble one season but buggered us big style the season we went down - its annoying when we win a game or even draw for the teams around us to also pick up points and us not move anywhere. Can see it being a recurring theme over the next month or so depending if we take all 3 points off these teams around us - cos even at the minute a draw at the weekend does us no favours (still id welcome a point on the board than nothing tbh).

Think Crawley might be in deep trouble as they are owned by a group crypto currency speculators and that has gone belly up according to financial reports. Also it seems a strange decision to leave out your top scorer who is apparently joining a club also in relegation trouble from the same division.

Oh I dunno. If he gets injured, the deal is off and possibly they need the dosh. For all we know Newport made a down payment on the condition he didn't play any further part in Crawley's season.

thats the basic start but need something on top of that to win games. oldham showed the former in the two games we played em last season and so did scunthorpe at the vic. its that odd bit of flair and class that was missing to turn 1 point into 3 and the reason why pldham failed in the end.

Yes we most certainly need flair as well as battling as organization. Against Stockport and in some other games this season we had neither. Hoping those days are behind us.

Restricting Crawley until the last few minutes to get an effort on target suggests we did indeed

They did play well, why folk have to look for negative reasons why we won never fails to baffle me.