Hartlepool (A) League 1 Saturday 27/9/09

[scott_powell]

People say relegation battle when we lose
People say play offs when we play well or win

I'll wait till christmas to judge

Well, we aint very close to ONE of the above at the moment are we?

We have played 'well' for about half a match so far :oops:

Okay i'll rephrase ... If we win its the play offs or mid table

Hope thats better :wink:

Gald we cleared that up my friend!
:lol:

:lol:

[SWS1]

Bollix. Just bollix. A narrow defeat against another no-hope team I can just about stomach, but not getting stuffed.
Bollix.
:evil:

[geoffwhiting]

anyone else having trouble with saddlers player?

I'm having trouble with most of Saddlers' players to be honest, especially after today's defeat ! :(

[SheffieldSaddler]

People say relegation battle when we lose
People say play offs when we play well or win

I'll wait till christmas to judge

If you need till christmas to realise that Hutchings is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard, then you aint much cop are ya!

[scott_powell]

People say relegation battle when we lose
People say play offs when we play well or win

I'll wait till christmas to judge

If you need till christmas to realise that Hutchings is about as much use as a chocolate fire guard, then you aint much cop are ya!

ok :roll:

[mel58]

We were truly awful: constant, mostly aimless, use of the long ball appeared to be our only game plan. Why Nicholls was on the pitch escapes me as we seemed intent on keeping things narrow when attacking rather than 'getting round the back'.

The thought of watching garbage like that for the rest of the season is too dreadful to contemplate.

[Neil Ravenscroft]

Just seen the goals on TV and it gets worse! Where was our right back for the first?

[Geordiesaddler]

Good wins for Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth :lol:

[big baz 1]

Awful

[bangsection]

Good wins for Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth :lol:

Funnily enough, I said something similar to 'GeoffSkillet' after yesterday's farce. Now if you're looking for a club that has recently come through adversity to enjoy success as "a club transformed" then you could comfortably pick any one of those three. Walsall? Do mek me loff.

I was really looking forward to seeing a decent game of football yesterday but as that failed to materialise I might see you at Billingham on Tuesday night!

[Bernie]

From the highlights on TV what went wrong with our defence for the first and third goal seems to be equally a problem with planning and execution. For the tactics you have to blame the manager, for the execution the players - but if we do not have players who are able to carry out a plan then again the manager has to be questioned for his choice of tactics.

From the commentary we were playing a tight off-side trap throughout the match. On the commentary Daniel Mole said that for the first goal Vincent was lagging behind our line, so that their left winger was onside and about five yards behind Westlake, Hughes and McDonald when he was passed to.

By the third goal it seems that Hartlepool found our off-side trap it all too easy to deal with, but playing a tight off-side so high up the pitch when the opposition have the ball in so much space seems very unwise.

I have never liked over-reliance on offside traps. Obviously they have a place, but if you use them instead of basics such as marking and tackling then you are asking for trouble.

[chestersaddler]

I thought the commentary on Sadsworld was pathetic yesterday, Bernie. Biased and subjective. At least Mick Kearns will criticise (constructively) the players / manager / tactics when appropriate.

The two clowns yesterday were trying to say that 3-0 flattered Hartlepool. Apart from a 5-10 minute spell after we went 2-0 down, it sounded as if we were never at the races. This has been reinforced by reports on here from those who attended.

[Neuromantic]

From the highlights on TV what went wrong with our defence for the first and third goal seems to be equally a problem with planning and execution. For the tactics you have to blame the manager, for the execution the players - but if we do not have players who are able to carry out a plan then again the manager has to be questioned for his choice of tactics.

From the commentary we were playing a tight off-side trap throughout the match. On the commentary Daniel Mole said that for the first goal Vincent was lagging behind our line, so that their left winger was onside and about five yards behind Westlake, Hughes and McDonald when he was passed to.

By the third goal it seems that Hartlepool found our off-side trap it all too easy to deal with, but playing a tight off-side so high up the pitch when the opposition have the ball in so much space seems very unwise.

I have never liked over-reliance on offside traps. Obviously they have a place, but if you use them instead of basics such as marking and tackling then you are asking for trouble.

Dan Mole was the commentator ? You have got to be kiddin seriously.

[Bernie]

Dan Mole was the commentator ? You have got to be kiddin seriously.

Unless I got it wrong he was standing in for Mick Kearns on the Saddlers Player. Our goalkeeping coach is apparently on holiday.

[chestersaddler]

Dan Mole was the commentator ? You have got to be kiddin seriously.

Unless I got it wrong he was standing in for Mick Kearns on the Saddlers Player. Our goalkeeping coach is apparently on holiday.

You are indeed correct. Adrian Mole would have been better.

[Bernie]

But i wouldnt say hes useless. We went 5 games unbeaten.

When I heard Hutchings boasting about having achieved a 5 game unbeaten run, I thought that there was something dodgy, but it did not quite click.

In the five matches before Hartlepool, there are two 0-0 draws, a 1-1 draw at home to Swindon and a win at Tranmere (thank you John Barnes for proving that Hutchings is not the worst manager in this division). The other match was when we were knocked out of the FA Trophy by Bury at home. How can Hutchings claim that being knocked out of the cup at home by Bury is not a defeat? We lost because we could not score a goal against Bury in 90 minutes and then Parking missed his penalty while Bury scored all five. That is a defeat in anyone's book.

Was the great Walsall Five Match Unbeaten Run the worst unbeaten run ever? In that we actually lost a match during it.

[ShyTallKnight]

Be worried. Be very, very worried :(

[Rich Evans]

But i wouldnt say hes useless. We went 5 games unbeaten.

When I heard Hutchings boasting about having achieved a 5 game unbeaten run, I thought that there was something dodgy, but it did not quite click.

In the five matches before Hartlepool, there are two 0-0 draws, a 1-1 draw at home to Swindon and a win at Tranmere (thank you John Barnes for proving that Hutchings is not the worst manager in this division). The other match was when we were knocked out of the FA Trophy by Bury at home. How can Hutchings claim that being knocked out of the cup at home by Bury is not a defeat? We lost because we could not score a goal against Bury in 90 minutes and then Parking missed his penalty while Bury scored all five. That is a defeat in anyone's book.

Was the great Walsall Five Match Unbeaten Run the worst unbeaten run ever? In that we actually lost a match during it.

But in the bookmakers book it is a draw.

[Geordiesaddler]

Good wins for Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth :lol:

Funnily enough, I said something similar to 'GeoffSkillet' after yesterday's farce. Now if you're looking for a club that has recently come through adversity to enjoy success as "a club transformed" then you could comfortably pick any one of those three. Walsall? Do mek me loff.

I was really looking forward to seeing a decent game of football yesterday but as that failed to materialise I might see you at Billingham on Tuesday night!

You know it makes sense! :lol:

You have a choice of Billingham's this week as we visit Synthonia on Saturday.

Don't forget the obligatory gas mask.

[otherbournemouthsaddler]

Plus points? Nice to meet up with otherbournemouthsaddler and Mrs otherbournemouthsaddler and it's always easy to park at Hartlepool but, honestly, that was it.

If thats the only plus point from a walsall performance, we are in worse trouble than i thought! :shock:

What is worrying is the lack of any passion at all amongst the supporters. I dread to think how our club will end up in a few years time. Im passed the embarrassment stage of making my other half watch this rubbish. She just looks at me with pity.
(You mean you spent thousands and thousands over the years wasting hours and hours of your life for THIS??????!!!!) She doesnt have to say it out loud and she grew up watching Darlington!

Good to see you bangy boy, but dunno the next match ill be going to. After watching the charlton and hartlepool "performances" this season, i think ive reached the point of no return until something changes higher up the food chain.

At the moment Darlington RA look more enticing! http://www.clubwebsite.co.uk/darlington ... e_table.pl


How much do they charge at Billingham???

[swiftyboy]

Good wins for Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth :lol:

Funnily enough, I said something similar to 'GeoffSkillet' after yesterday's farce. Now if you're looking for a club that has recently come through adversity to enjoy success as "a club transformed" then you could comfortably pick any one of those three. Walsall? Do mek me loff.

I was really looking forward to seeing a decent game of football yesterday but as that failed to materialise I might see you at Billingham on Tuesday night!

Its teams like Blackpool that make me green with envy. That could have been us if the Chairman didnt pull the plug so visciously with that disgusting capitulation we all love to talk about. They got there, and have shown ambition to stay there with quality signings like Bouazza. I mean, can you EVER imagine Walsall FC making a signing like that? Not a chance

[bangsection]

Blackpool, Wigan, Swansea, Fulham, Stoke, Burnley, Doncaster...the list of clubs that can legitimately claim to be "transformed" both in terms of league position and infrastructure is a long one.

What's equally interesting is the list of teams that have fallen down the league due to catastrophic mismanagement but have emerged stronger as a result.

This is the ultimate irony of the great Bonser & Whalley "Bournemouth, Rotherham and Luton" soundbite. A glib statement that was used to try and frighten fans into imagining some nightmare post-Bonser scenario has actually started to sound like a pretty convincing rallying cry for regime change!

Would I be happy to go down a division or two if it meant rebuilding a club that actually has some self-respect and that the fans are proud to get behind? You bet I would.

And it certainly seems a lot more attractive than the current alternative - Bonser and Whalley presiding over a club that looks like its going down anyway while they continue to take their pound of flesh whatever happens.

[Bernie]

Its teams like Blackpool that make me green with envy. That could have been us if the Chairman didnt pull the plug so visciously with that disgusting capitulation we all love to talk about.

And Ian Holloway has taken them into the play-off positions. I have been following them since they signed a certain former player of ours. Using one of the smallest budgets in the division Holloway has built a squad from scratch with an outside chance of promotion to premier league.

Does anyone know whether he applied for the job when Hutchings was appointed? I would have thought it pretty likely, since Walsall is a lot nearer to St Albans than Blackpool, and Holloway has often said how he would never move because of his deaf kid's education.

[Geordiesaddler]

The realisation is starting to hit home is that football supporters don't demand success, they demand, quite simply, a football club posessing some integrity, and an old fashioned philosophy of a team representing a community. Success and failure will ebb and flow, but so long as the club is run properly with football at the forefront nobody will care. Bye bye Bonser and Whalley your time is over.

Damien, its about £4 in at Billingham, but if you want to see a real hum-dinger just get yourself down the road to Spennymoor on October 24th. My bus is almost sold out already and I havn't even arranged it or advertised it yet! We had 547 yeatsrday, more than mighty Blyth Spartans!! There could be 1000 at Spenny, but I can guarantee a great day of meaningful football and a good atmosphere.

[Geordiesaddler]

I was lattery at York last season for Whitley Bay's annual FA Youth cup pasting. Great supporters and officlials. I always thought they were more non-league than league in terms of set up, I mean you can go and have a pint with the players after the game! Another club that fought tooth and nail to keep its stadium and is now on the up having reached Wembley last season. Good luck to them, great little club and a fabulous city.

[PT]

The realisation is starting to hit home is that football supporters don't demand success, they demand, quite simply, a football club posessing some integrity, and an old fashioned philosophy of a team representing a community. Success and failure will ebb and flow, but so long as the club is run properly with football at the forefront nobody will care. Bye bye Bonser and Whalley your time is over.

Damien, its about £4 in at Billingham, but if you want to see a real hum-dinger just get yourself down the road to Spennymoor on October 24th. My bus is almost sold out already and I havn't even arranged it or advertised it yet! We had 547 yeatsrday, more than mighty Blyth Spartans!! There could be 1000 at Spenny, but I can guarantee a great day of meaningful football and a good atmosphere.

I think you're right about what a true football supporter's expectations are based upon and integrity has a deep and meaningful resonance in that respect.

At all levels when something gets it in the way of that integrity it can sometimes lead to a dramatic arrest in the club's fortunes or conversely can actually lift the club on the playing front whilst ransacking the club of its soul and its tradition to the point where when the club is on its uppers again, there is actually nothing left there to support it. I'm not envious of Notts County at all for that very reason. Notts County aren't about £40,000 a week contracts and mysterious foreign investors. I guess there will be around 3,000 County fans in amongst the "newbies" who are currently riding the wave but must in their hearts know that their club's existence is now based upon the whim and folly of somebody thousands of miles away whose name they don't even know.

Further down the chain, I look up the road from you Geordie at Durham Town. Marine gave them another spanking yesterday and whilst not many on here will know about Durham, they effectively lost their integrity, went for it, got to the Unibond but now following the withdrawal of sponsorship are withering on the vine and will do well to survive. The supporters of Whitley Bay must be loving it at present but again there must be a core amongst them who fear the club moving away from the integrity of "being" and representing Whitley Bay. I guess half the crowd were open to the elements yesterday. Should WB splash out on some "modern" new facility, should they plough on and elect to go up but face Durham's peril in doing so? Either way on either of these matters what some may see as progress others will see as a loss of integrity around some core belief about what being "whitley bay" is all about.

So that brings me back to Walsall. Fellows Park on match day represented Walsall the town in a way the Bescot has never been able to capture. Walsall FC lost a lot of integrity when it moved and has been doing so ever since to the point we have now where a matchday experience following the town's football team is in no way representative of the town itself. The (often dark) humour, the pride, the ability to regularly punch above its weight and stick two fingers up at "big town" charlie's who thought they were better than us, has all but disappeared. It has become gentrified to the extent that a trip to the Bescot is akin to a trip to Edgabston for a Championship match. Lots of empty seats and a very relaxing, almost comatose way to spend an afternoon. Not football and certainly not Walsall.

[bangsection]

I was lattery at York last season for Whitley Bay's annual FA Youth cup pasting. Great supporters and officlials. I always thought they were more non-league than league in terms of set up, I mean you can go and have a pint with the players after the game! Another club that fought tooth and nail to keep its stadium and is now on the up having reached Wembley last season. Good luck to them, great little club and a fabulous city.

Yep, after a pretty disastrous league campaign last year my local club are going great guns this season. They were almost destroyed by the odious John Batchelor but there's a real sense that they could be going somewhere this season. After the windfall following the FA Trophy final the powers that be at City could have chosen to bank the money and settle for a midtable finish this term. Instead they gave Martin Foyle £55,000 to go out and buy Michael Gash who scored twice in Tuesday's draw with Cambridge and once in the win over Kiddie yesterday. A statement of intent that the York fans really appreciated. It's really not that hard, is it?

[Geordiesaddler]

The realisation is starting to hit home is that football supporters don't demand success, they demand, quite simply, a football club posessing some integrity, and an old fashioned philosophy of a team representing a community. Success and failure will ebb and flow, but so long as the club is run properly with football at the forefront nobody will care. Bye bye Bonser and Whalley your time is over.

Damien, its about £4 in at Billingham, but if you want to see a real hum-dinger just get yourself down the road to Spennymoor on October 24th. My bus is almost sold out already and I havn't even arranged it or advertised it yet! We had 547 yeatsrday, more than mighty Blyth Spartans!! There could be 1000 at Spenny, but I can guarantee a great day of meaningful football and a good atmosphere.

I think you're right about what a true football supporter's expectations are based upon and integrity has a deep and meaningful resonance in that respect.

At all levels when something gets it in the way of that integrity it can sometimes lead to a dramatic arrest in the club's fortunes or conversely can actually lift the club on the playing front whilst ransacking the club of its soul and its tradition to the point where when the club is on its uppers again, there is actually nothing left there to support it. I'm not envious of Notts County at all for that very reason. Notts County aren't about £40,000 a week contracts and mysterious foreign investors. I guess there will be around 3,000 County fans in amongst the "newbies" who are currently riding the wave but must in their hearts know that their club's existence is now based upon the whim and folly of somebody thousands of miles away whose name they don't even know.

Further down the chain, I look up the road from you Geordie at Durham Town. Marine gave them another spanking yesterday and whilst not many on here will know about Durham, they effectively lost their integrity, went for it, got to the Unibond but now following the withdrawal of sponsorship are withering on the vine and will do well to survive. The supporters of Whitley Bay must be loving it at present but again there must be a core amongst them who fear the club moving away from the integrity of "being" and representing Whitley Bay. I guess half the crowd were open to the elements yesterday. Should WB splash out on some "modern" new facility, should they plough on and elect to go up but face Durham's peril in doing so? Either way on either of these matters what some may see as progress others will see as a loss of integrity around some core belief about what being "whitley bay" is all about.

So that brings me back to Walsall. Fellows Park on match day represented Walsall the town in a way the Bescot has never been able to capture. Walsall FC lost a lot of integrity when it moved and has been doing so ever since to the point we have now where a matchday experience following the town's football team is in no way representative of the town itself. The (often dark) humour, the pride, the ability to regularly punch above its weight and stick two fingers up at "big town" charlie's who thought they were better than us, has all but disappeared. It has become gentrified to the extent that a trip to the Bescot is akin to a trip to Edgabston for a Championship match. Lots of empty seats and a very relaxing, almost comatose way to spend an afternoon. Not football and certainly not Walsall.

PT, Whitley Bay have progressed before on the basis of sponsorship and nearly gone bust so we won't be following Durham. I was there, travellinmg to away games at Morecambe and Emley on a Monday night in a school minibus with the team, the manager driving the minibus. All of the ground improvements at Whitley Bay in the last 2 season (and they are considerable) have been undertaken by supporters on a voluntary basis, co-ordinated by a mate of mine. He currently has a price in for a new stand which we will help build, and the price is very reasonable. Durham only ever averaged 260, they play at a newfangled out of town stadium with a plastic pitch, they havn't done things properly, and their success was based in an "all the eggs in one basket" sponsorship deal. The way to progress football clubs at any level, is to retain and improve your traditional stadium, build strong links with the community and engage and involve your supporters. If on the pitch success comes it will therefore be built on strong foundations, if it doesn't people still feel included and enjoy taking part as we all used to at Fellows park. Many people at Whitley Bay don't want to progress up the so called pyramid, I'm completely undecided having experienced both sides. But I can assure you what happened at Durham and Blue Star won't be repeated. Five years ago we were getting 120, 547 there on Saturday, and that's in the same league. Whilst some clubs choose to progress with monied backers, others are just growing along traditionmal lines - Lowestoft Town being the best example outside of the clutch of fans clubs that have sprung up. In the end it doesn't really mater whether you are getting 50,000 or 50, so long as you live within your means, and put football at the top of the agenda, with the supporters being the most valued people at the club. Football clubs were formed to be football clubs not retail businesess, pension schemes, franchises, or (as John Hall tried at Newcastle) "sporting clubs". Since the 1980's The Frankenstienisation of football clubs in the name of progress (or in Walsall FC's case survival!!) in conjunction with the wanton destruction of traditional stadia has been the most devastating act of cultural vandalism this country has ever seen.

[chestersaddler]

Whoops Sorry, wrong website - thought it was Upthesaddlers :) :wink:

[Geordiesaddler]

You can't have a discussion about what's going wrong at Walsall without drawing refernces to the wider world of football with its examples of succesess and failures. To attempt to do so would be ridiculous, and extremely narrow-minded. It was Jeff Bonser that started this tac with the "Rotherham, Luton and Bournemouth" quote - so we should now be able to continue that discussion as the comparisons unfold over time.