It's football Jim, but not as most people know it...

You may just have missed this what with all the hoo-ha about the England captaincy (something which I'm sure I'll be writing about on here at some point this week) and the Cup semi-finals but something little short of miraculous happened this weekend in the football world. Hartlepool United, the club I've supported for the last 20 years, beat Plymouth 2-0 at Victoria Park to reach 50 points and thus secure our safety in Division 3 (oh go on then, League One if I must) for a fifth straight season. Not much you might think but bear in mind that the last three seasons since we got promoted, Pools have been very lucky not to get relegated back to Division 4 (oh go on then, League Two if I must, either way it's the division in which we've spent all but ten years of our ninety odd year Football League existence) and have ended up scraping over the line on the last day (apart from our first season when we managed it with the luxury of a week to spare). It almost goes without saying that we were odds on favourites with the world and his dog to finally bite the dust and be relegated at the start of this season so to steam over the safety line with two months of the season to spare and find ourselves comfortably ahead of sides like Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton, teams with the sort of budget to spend on the playing squad that Pools can only dream of, feels pretty damn good.

I think the key moment was five games in when our long-serving manager Chris Turner, a great manager in his day but one who'd really shown the signs of having gone stale and going through the motions in the last couple of years, was surprisingly sacked - as it turned out, it was because he was preparing to put a consortium together to put in a bid for his former club Sheffield Wednesday. Which left us with his assistant Mick Wadsworth, last seen managing Chester before they went bust about a year ago, in charge. Not a great omen. But he deserves a medal for the job he's done with Pools - in six short months we've gone from a team who looked at best demoralised and at worst out-and-out clueless to a team with the trademark Pools fighting spirit back intact. Even more remarkably it's been done with pretty much the same bunch of players, the only additions being two free transfers from Wadsworth's old stamping ground of Carlisle (including left-back Evan Horwood who I think has to qualify for being one of our finds of the season) and another from Shrewsbury. Apart from a couple of early hiccups, there's been plenty to celebrate this season - some memorable bloody noses dished out to the likes of Brighton and Peterborough, the emergence of players such as Tony Sweeney and Gary Liddle (players we always knew had talent but had just been stifled by a lack of confidence) coming into their own and, lest we forget, seeing our longest-serving player and all-round good bloke Ritchie Humphreys break the 40-year-old appearance record for Pools. It's gone from me being convinced this season was going to see us finish way adrift in the bottom four to actually believing we might be outside contenders for promotion next season - all we need is to keep the nucleus of this squad intact and get a couple of decent strikers in (our one weak area this season) and who knows what we could achieve?

A pretty impressive story then. But it's unlikely you'll have heard it unless you're a Pools fan yourself or live in North Teesside or South Durham. In this world of big money clubs and spoilt brat megastar players, clubs like us tend not to get a mention. But I think it goes without saying that Hartlepool United matter just as much to Hartlepool fans as Chelsea or Arsenal or Manchester United or Spurs do to their fans. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Pools (and other small clubs like us such as Exeter and Orient who also deserve credit for being up in the top half despite being written off as relegation dead-certs at the start of the season) can beat that on the grounds that we matter to a greater percentage of our fans than the big Premier League giants do (I have to say, I've yet to encounter anyone who you could call a Hartlepool "glory supporter").

So while the media in this country continue to go into a frenzy over Rooney's form or who the better manager is out of Ferguson and Wenger or how much Chelsea or Man City have spent on transfers this season, I'll stay here quite happy supporting Pools. It's a frustrating life most of the time but seasons such as this, the two promotions I've seen us get and seeing us run out in the League One play-off final make the tough times worthwhile. :)

'Ullo

Well I s'pose I'd better put something on here then hadn't I?...

Anyway, if you're reading this I suspect it's most likely that you know me already. But just in case you don't, my name's Andy, I'm a 32-year-old exiled northerner now living in London. By day I work for the NHS, by night I do many things but mostly play bass in the band Sun Circus and do some writing for various fanzines notably Bubblegum Slut and Pure Rawk.

This isn't going to be specifically about music though although I suspect there will be a few posts on that. This blog was specifically set up basically for what the title says - shouting, pointing and ranting. The posts could be about music, football, politics, wrestling, general frustration with every day life...whatever really. Essentially it's for stuff that won't fit in either on the 'zines I work for or on my Facebook account.

Anyway, welcome and enjoy folks - it's gonna be an interesting ride if nothing else...

Cheers,

Andy