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December
Pool
1 Peterborough 0. Pool gained revenge for their opening day defeat at
the hands of Posh with a polished performance at Victoria Park. A long
ball from captain Micky Barron saw Gary Jones putting pressure on visiting
defender Andy Edwards. Tyler came out of his goal and Edward's left the
ball for the keeper, who proceeded to leave the ball to Edward's. Jonah
was happy to slide the ball into an empty net for only his third goal
of the season, but his second against Peterborough. This proved to be
enough to take the three points on the night and send the another of the
divisions promotion favourites away from Pool empty handed. Pool 1
Halifax 0. The Auto Windscreens Shield paired Pool initially with
Halifax Town, and first half blasted from Kevin Henderson was enough to
send the Shaymen away from the Vic empty handed. Pools ninth home victory
in a row, all with clean sheets. Martin Hollund was enjoying his football
at the Vic!
Pool 0 Swansea City 1. The run had to end sometime and inform Swansea
came to the Vic and did a professional job on Chris Turners team. Jason
Price scored a break away goal for the Jacks and soon after captain Micky
Barron received his marching orders for an alleged stamp on Steve Watkin.
Pool struggled to get back into the game, and being a man down proved
to big a hurdle and the home run was over. Swansea's promotion push was
gathering pace and Pool could not stop them.
Exeter City 1 Pool 2. A 700+ mile round-trip, two goals for Jonah
and three points. Job done, all back on the bus. Andy McAvoy made his
mark on this game with some excellent play and some not so excellent behaviour.
Pools new flying midfield man found space on the right wing and crossed
for Gary Jones to superbly head home from 12 yards and send Pool into
the break 1-0 up. In the second half Pool were reduced to 10 men for the
second game in a row. On 60 minutes Graeme Power made a late tackle on
McAvoy, who retaliated and was shown the red card by referee Phil Richards.
In the 74th minute Exeter drew level. Chris Curran ran onto a through
ball and from 25 yards his shot squirmed under the body of Martin Hollund,
and into the back of the Pool goal. Exeter stepped up the pace as they
went looking for the three points. However they were stunned when Pool
regained the lead. In the 78th minute Pool sprung the Exeter offside trap.
Gary Jones ran onto a long ball from the Pool defence, kept his cool,
and beat Stuart Naylor in the home goal.
Pool 2 York 1. Boxing day at the Vic saw a bumper crowd of 4668
turn out to see Pool send York City back down the A19 pointless. Kevin
Henderson gave Pool a first half lead, only for a Barry Conlon strike
to pull City level in the second half. Then came possibly the goal of
the season. In the 74th minute Stevo took a right wing free kick and with
his back to goal Kevin Henderson smashed an overhead kick past the static
Mimms and send to Vic into raptures again. It was a goal of sheer class
and a worthy match winner. The goal was a contender for Sky TV's goal
of the season competition, at the time of writing the winner has not yet
been chosen. After the game Pool boss Chris Turner hailed Kevin Henderson's
stunning match winning goal. "If that was scored in the Premier League
everybody would be saying it was from someone worth £10m. It was a piece
of genuine skill, certainly not a fluke. I set a target before Christmas
and now we have taken six points out of six. We didn't play as well as
we have been, but we are not going to play so well every week. Martin
Hollund kept us in the game in the first 25 minutes with three brilliant
saves and Paul Stephenson worked very hard in midfield. Last season we
might have lost this game after they equalised, but we dug it out and
won."
Lincoln City 1 Pool 2. A full return over the Christmas period
for Pool, nine points from nine and a very impressive show at Sincil Bank.
Pool dominated from the kick off on a frozen pitch attacking towards the
661 travelling Poolies. And it was Ian Clark who put Pool in front in
only the 9th minute. The ball fell kindly for Clarkie 20 yards from goal,
and he sweetly (with the aid of a slight deflection) slammed the ball
past Richardson in the Lincoln goal. In the second half Tommy Miller put
Pool 2-0 before Paul Miller ensured a frantic end to the game. Pool held
on though and deserved the points from their first half showing alone.
With the new Millennium about to finally arrive Pool were in good shape.
5th position in the league and firing on all cylinders. Chris Turner had
smoothed out the early season problems and put Pool on a promotion path.
As the year pasted so did Y2K without causing any major problems and the
second half of the season was to pan out as a real rollercoaster of a
ride.
The story
continues.............January.
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