Football Season Review

Over the last few years, Hartlepool have established themselves as a solid midtable League One club, with the sole exception being the previous season, during which the Pools showed signs of being capable of pushing for promotion. The general consensus was that the Pools were a quality striker away from being able to push for the Play-offs, and they tried to solve that problem with the summer capture of veteran striker Steve Howard. Unfortunately for them, Howard's transfer didn't work out nearly as well as hoped - his large physical frame and aerial ability made Neale Cooper base his side's play around him, but Howard simply didn't deliver the goods, neither when it came to goals nor to his overall play. It was difficult to predict what would eventually happen early in the season, as the Pools collected four points from their opening two home games, but things went downhill after that and Cooper resigned in late October after seeing his side winning only one of their opening 14 matches. John Hughes came in as his successor but needed 11 games to record his first win in charge - the victory came away to Sheffield United during the festive schedule, but the Pools were already seen as goners by then. However, Hughes wasn't willing to give up - he changed the way the side played and started to regularly drop Steve Howard, as he switched to a more passing oriented style of play. The results gradually improved - the Pools had a fantastic run of form in late January and February during which they recorded five wins and two draws from seven games, with the run giving them a realistic chance of staying up. Their hopes were short lived due to the abysmal form they displayed in March, as they failed to score a single goal in the eight games played during that month and lost ground in the race for survival. Their relegation was confirmed with two games to spare - the fans will be left wondering what would've been had Hughes started the season in charge, but he was always appointed with the task to get the Pools back to League One at the first time of asking. He has several young players that he will be expected to build his squad around, with Jack Baldwin being the most impressive one, and it will be very interesting to see what he will do with the squad over the summer - if he does some shrewd business, the Pools will have every chance of bouncing back up straight away.

Player of the Season: Jack Baldwin