Phil Yelland cast his eye back over our previous meeting with this weekend's visitors to Holker Street.
Tomorrow sees us meet Hartlepool United for the 92nd time in three different competitions – Football League, National League and FA Cup.
Pools’ last visit was in September 2019 in the National League where a late Ryan Donaldson goal gave them the points as we slipped into the bottom four in the table. Little did we know the run that Ian Evatt’s team was to go on following that, as we lost just three more league games before the season concluded in March and we were crowned as National League champions on points per game.
The first meeting between the clubs here took place on the final day of our first season in Division Three North in May 1922 when United won 1-0. Indeed, we had to wait until their seventh visit to Holker Street in April 1928 before recording a first home win with Willie Miller and Jacob Parsons scoring in a 2-1 win.
We have suffered some heavy defeats at Hartlepool down the years, including our record Football League defeat – 10-1 in April 1959. Our biggest home win over them came in April 1962 when we triumphed 5-1 – there was a hat-trick for Dave Brown, with other goals coming from Johnny Kemp and Jimmy Armstrong.
The one FA Cup meeting between the clubs came in December 1958 when we won 2-0 with two goals from Jackie Robertson and that set up the often talked about FA Cup Third Round tie with the champions of the day Wolverhampton Wanderers in January 1959.
Our last home win over Pools was on Easter Monday 2019 when Josh Kay netted a spectacular winner moments after coming off the bench in the first half.
The scorecard currently reads 24 wins for us, 11 draws and 11 defeats with Pools here at Holker Street. Let’s hope we can add to the win tally tomorrow.