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Hmph. Well, that wasn’t the festive season we were hoping for, was it? Hope Santa at least brought you the Lynx Africa gift set you were hoping for.
We were all looking forward to Boxing Day so much, weren’t we? I was probably the only Latics fan who was pleased that our game had been moved to 5.30pm because it meant I could go to cheer on Prescot Cables at FC United at 3pm. Cables beating mini United and Oldham beating York would have been the perfect Christmas present.
Alas, by half time at Broadhurst Park, Cables were 1-0 down to an Adam Le Fondre (remember him?) goal, and the United fans in the St Mary’s Road end were singing “Main Stand, Main Stand, what’s going on?”, because it was becoming near impossible to see the other end of the pitch. It didn’t bode well for the game a few miles up the road at Boundary Park going ahead.
Fair play to their PA, who, at this point, was playing I Can See Clearly Now.
At 4.30pm – an hour before KO – it was announced that our game had been postponed due to fog. With Cables 4-0 down, the main bar at mini United shut, and no other game to go to, we got a taxi into Oldham town centre to drown our sorrows, only realising on the way that the Fox and Pine, The Egyptian Room and the Molino Lounge were all closed. Jingle bollocks.
It couldn’t be helped – even with our Wembley-of-the-North stadium and our state of the art pitch, there’s nothing you can do about fog – but fuck our luck. It would have been our biggest crowd in ages, the ground would have been bouncing, I’d like to think that would have inspired the players, and a win against the league leaders would have thrown us right into the mix. It wasn’t to be.
Having looked ‘undercooked’ against Wealdstone, we really could have done with hitting the ground running at Hartlepool on New Years Day to try to keep some momentum after an enforced Christmas break.
The early signs weren’t great – Hartlepool missed a sitter early on, when sloppy defending allowed Dodds to square the ball into the 6 yard box, but neither of the two forwards could get on the end of it for a tap-in.
It looked like we could finally get the festive party started when a great direct move from the back (something I’d like to see us do more of) saw Monthe play a dangerous ball up field for Stones to head it onto Lundstram, who unleashed an absolute thunderbastard of a volley from 20 yards to put us 1-0 up. Happy New Year!
Alas and alack, it couldn’t last. We gave away a stupid free kick, which is a bad thing to do when you’re a bit crap at defending set pieces, and it was far too easy for Waterfall to head it in.
We hoped we might play better with the wind behind us in the second half, but we’re on a hiding to nothing hoping the weather will help us. We made an utter cat’s arse of clearing a cross into the area, the ball bobbled about interminably, and Mancini seemed to have all the time in the world to pick his shot and put Hartlepool 2-1 up.
Radio Tees said we ‘huffed and puffed without really creating any clear cut chances’, which was a pretty accurate description. There was some curious decision making, both in front of goal and in our substitutions – why bring off Lundstram when Gardner was having a poor game and looked like a walking red card?
Bringing on Fondop, who was booed onto the pitch by the fans of his former club, wasn’t a terrible idea, and he had a good shot from outside the area which the keeper did well to tip over the bar. We just weren’t good enough in front of goal, though. Sick of 2025 already.
Mellon didn’t pull any punches after the game and made no excuses. He bemoaned us giving away a cheap first goal “from a poor decision – from the players, not the referee” – and said the players deserved praise for their recent performances, but just hadn’t been good enough at Hartlepool. He stressed that we’ve got a good chance of beating anyone if we play how we can play, and “all the games are important now, every game’s important”. We move on, and we could really do without more slip-ups.
And just to put the icing on the stale leftover Christmas cake that was fucking horrible in the first place, it looks like Josh Stones has signed for York, and their co-owner brought it to all of our attention that he’s a bellwipe who pays for a blue tick on Twitter. No wonder they didn’t want to rearrange the Boxing Day game too quickly. Fuck them, fuck their shitty not-a-cathedral and fuck Matt Uggla. Whatever. May auld acquaintances be forgot. We go again.
No game today because the FA Trophy is a crappy competition that we want no part in. It’s forecast to be sunny, why not go for a nice bracing walk? Let’s get some fresh air and clear our heads. And hopefully I’ll be waxing lyrical this time next week about God’s number 9 having a blinder at Eastleigh and how we would have been mad to be throwing a load of money at Wigan for a player they don’t want when we’ve got the best striker in the league anyway. KTMFF.
Written by Arlene Finnigan. Hartlepool photos © Thomas Lee Stacey.
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