The Poolie Bunker

This season we have already had six goalless league draws, which in itself is rare for us, but also is the most in a season since 1972/73 when we had seven over the course of 46 games, now that is not the sign of a successful season but shows that if anything we have a 'resolute' back line, now as that was nearly 52 years ago when the back four featured the likes of hardy ankle crackers such as Potter, Goad, Dawes, Green, Rob Smith, Ashurst and the ever dependable Barry (thou shall not pass) Watling in goal, we didn't that season possess a formidable forward line (John Coyne with 9 being the top scorer) which many would say we do this season, therefore what I am suggesting is we adopt a much more attack minded approach this second half of the season and we may well reap the benefits of a better league position?

Sure we drew 23 counting goals n 0 0s roundabout mid 90s.

Nah ! the back line are far from resolute. They can keep a clean sheet, only when they are prepared to not score any at the other end. This is more to do with having players sent off in 3 of those 6 games, and playing for a damage limitation 0-0, though to be fair, they did well to achieve those results with 10 men, with all 3 players having been sent off quite early in the games in question. The 72/73 defence were half decent, but Pools struggled to score goals. The following 2 seasons saw the work of that defence complimented with the signing of Gauden, McMahon and Moore to get a few more goals, with Shoulder replacing the now departed Green in the back line. The team of those 3 seasons had a bit of steel about them, in fact Eamon Dunphy implied in his book, that they were a basically a bunch of barstewards, who fancied themselves as tough guys, something sadly lacking from the Pools teams of the recent past. I always maintained had Ashurst not buggered off to Gillingham ( who could blame him though ) Pools could've went up in 74/75, alas we had to wait another 16 years.

was looking at the tables and just realised that us and darlo have something in common. Joint holders of having the most drawn games in their respective divisions and bang in mid table due to it.

Good point, maybe it's my memory of teams like Forest and Liverpool from the past racking up 0-0's when they were difficult to beat, you have to have a high percentage of wins also ( which we aren't presently), hence I'm suggesting we loosen the shackles, but then we would undoubtedly concede more, I'm sure clean sheets do give the defence a lot of confidence though, which can only be good.

I'm talking specifically about 0-0's here KPG , season 97/98 which you speak of we had 6 goalless games out of 23 draws.That season we had Holland/Harper, Knowles, Barron, Lee, Lucas, and Bradley at the back, a pretty strong defence.