Bournemouth 0 Hartlepool 1
Dec 13 2010 The Journal
MICK Wadsworth was recently confirmed as Hartlepool United’s temporary manager for the remainder of the season – little wonder given the impact he has had on the side in recent weeks.
Since taking over from Chris Turner in August, the first-team coach has engineered a dramatic turnaround in fortunes.
In the last few seasons, Pool have struggled to avoid defeat after defeat away from Victoria Park. Under the former Newcastle and Carlisle coach, they are a different prospect altogether.
In winning at Bournemouth, Pool displayed the characteristics he has installed. Organised and determined at the back, they defended solidly for long periods of the game.
James Brown’s goal proved decisive and it meant they have now recorded back-to-back 1-0 away wins after victory at Tranmere on November 24.
This was their fourth away win of the season and gave Wadsworth immense satisfaction.
“Those victories often taste sweeter, when you come to a good team and win 1-0, and I said that to the players,” he said.
“We scored a great goal and then ground it out. As a coach, that’s very, very pleasing. It’s a good result and our last three away performances have been very good – we won two of them and played very well at Colchester when we lost.
“The performance at Tranmere was solid and we have had six points from nine in three away games.”
The day was meant to be about Bournemouth celebrating 100 years of football at Dean Court, but instead the home crowd exited venting their fury at Pool and the referee. Minutes after Brown’s classy individual goal – he swerved across the defence and curled his shot into the net from 22 yards – the visitors could easily have been down to ten men.
And without a back-up goalkeeper on the bench, they would have had to put central defender Sam Collins in goal for almost an hour.
Jake Kean was challenged by Harry Arter as he collected a header from Collins, but reacted by angrily barging into his opponent.
Referee Danny McDermid didn’t listen to the penalty and red-card appeals – instead he booked both players and handed Pool a free-kick.
“I think Jake was very lucky, he lost his head,” said Wadsworth. “He knows himself and he is a level-headed young man.
“But he settled down and got away with the incident. I can understand the ref, as the foul on him wasn’t pretty. I might look differently if I was Eddie Howe (Bournemouth manager), but I see where the referee was coming from.”
Kean saved well to keep out a goalbound Marc Pugh shot, and home skipper Jason Pearce should have equalised, but pushed his shot wide from close range.
But the principles Wadsworth believes in proved decisive. The back four and midfield worked non-stop and, while chances were a bit limited for the visitors, when they can carve out results like this one, there’s no reason to look over their shoulders this season.
“We defended well, stopped balls coming in and got to loose balls,” he said.
“We knew what Bournemouth would do and come at us in the second half and it dragged out a bit and seemed a long time, even the four minutes of injury time.”
BOURNEMOUTH: Stewart, Smith, Partington, Pearce, Wiggins, Pugh, Hollands, Robinson, Arter (Feeney 54), Bignall (Taylor 46), Fletcher (Symes 75). Subs (not used): Cummings, Bartley, Bradbury, Purches.
Booked: Arter, Hollands, Taylor, Robinson, Smith.
HARTLEPOOL: Kean, Austin, Collins, Hartley, Horwood, McSweeney (Bjornsson 88), Sweeney, Murray (Gamble 75), Liddle, Monkhouse, Brown (Humphreys 64). Subs (not used): Boyd, Yantorno, Haslam, Larkin.
Booked: Kean, Horwood, Monkhouse.
Goal: Brown 31.
Ref: Danny McDermid (Hampshire) Att: 6,129
