By Albatross
January 29 2006

Radio 5's Punditry show Fighting Talk has a round called "Defend the Indefensible" where contestants have 20 seconds to defend a statement so absurd that that it's like saying the Moon is made of Cheese. At the moment "Martin Scott is doing a fine job as manager of Hartlepool United" fits the bill. I'll steer clear of the personal invective; Scott may not be doing the business as HUFC Boss, but he's still a human being with feelings, with a family who may read this, and it's not my style to make personal attacks on anyone. However his position at Victoria Park now looks as close to untenable as makes no difference and to pretend otherwise would require a pair of glasses not just rose tinted, but with lenses made of Rosewood.

The defeat by Blackpool leaves us in 21st position - a relegation place. It leaves us with the next to worst home record of any side in the division. No side has scored fewer on their own turf than our 16; only Scunthorpe have conceded more. We are the only side in the whole division with a negative goal difference at home. Home and away, we've taken four points out of the last 27 available, and ten from the the last 42. If you include the Tamworth debacle, we have won just twice in our last fifteen games. Unless we can beat the fairly woeful Rotherham next Saturday, our winless streak of nine games could well stretch to 14 before the next game that looks even remotely winnable - Scunthorpe on 4th March.

On current form, Pools are heading for relegation and nothing can disguise that. To avoid it we need to turn things around with a vengeance, and my confidence (in common with most) in Scott doing that is non-existent. We can no longer afford to wait on the promise of things being all right when Boyd and Porter are fit. I was personally amazed that Boyd was given as long as 45 minutes for the first team yesterday; this is a man who made his comeback for the reserves, playing just half the game, after four and a half months out of action and yet found himself charged with turning things around for the first team a few short days later. It's Roy of the Rovers stuff, not real life; even allowing for Boyd having a complete recovery, to throw in a player so badly in need of match practice in the hope of changing the game smacks of a touch of desperation.

This was supposed to be the season when Pools finally completed the process of giving the critics a bloody nose and climbed into the top half of the professional game for the first time. We were so close last season - 8 minutes from the Championship as so many are saying - and Scott himself was saying before the start of the season that the aim was automatic promotion. We had good reason for confidence: poor sides don't reach the playoffs twice, we had only lost Westwood and Ross of the players who made a significant contribution, and to compensate we signed four players with experience in the Championship or even in a couple of cases higher.

Injuries is a defence that some have rolled out, but it just doesn't wash any more. We knew over the Summer that Barron would need surgery; we knew well before the season started that Porter would miss a long spell. Similarly Hugh Robertson wasn't going to be ready to start for a while and had a worrying injury record last season. To lose James Brown was unfortunate, but he had yet to play for the first team competitively. You're always going to pick up injuries during the season, hence the need for a strong squad - which is what we were told we had. Sadly the performances and results even allowing for the injuries have rarely displayed the quality to compete in this division, never mind be close to the head of it.

What frustrates me above all is that we've blown a golden opportunity to persuade people in the town that they should throw their support our way rather than in the direction of Newcastle, Sunderland or Man Utd. Playoff Final Fever had taken the town by storm; the 17,000 that travelled to Cardiff represents the biggest Hartlepool following in history. Had we been challenging at the right end of the table, continuing to be a dominant force at Victoria Park, how many of the 10,000 or more that tagged along for the ride to Cardiff would be coming to at least a few games? Instead, we're seeing attendances falling and where once we could rely on gates of 5000 or more regularly, anything up to 1000 of those that used to be regulars have decided to find something else to do on a Saturday.

So where now for Hartlepool United? Where now for Martin Scott? Well, it will surprise no-one if there's a parting of the ways very soon - it now appears to be a question of when rather than if.