Atomic Sports Media (blog): Confessions of a Lower League Soccer Fan, part 1: David vs. Goliath

I've just started blogging for Atomic Sports Media as well as here. I figured that it would give me an escape from consistently big articles and let me vent my thoughts - perhaps frustrations - about my favourite sports. I've started doing Confessions as a series of writings about Hartlepool United, partially because that's what comes first in my sporting life but also because I hope that people - even if it was just one - take an interest in it all too.

Read my blog here or below...



So, it comes to this. My team, the once ‘lowly’ Hartlepool United, facing up against the fallen giant, Leeds United. Leeds, having only been in the Premiership in 2004 and the UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI FINAL in 2001 (a fact I feel I must shout given that I simply cannot comprehend this team facing my own), flew down the divisions after a poor business investment did not pay off. Thinking that they could get away with it, Leeds management duly put all their eggs in one basket - the pay-off being the Champions’ League title bonus - only for Valencia to duly crap on Leeds 3-0 in the semi-final second leg in front of 53,000 fans in Spain. From a great height.

Oops!

So here we are today. Leeds, deducted 15 points before they kicked their first ball (financial irregularities do this to you), are now on -3 after four games; 4 straight wins. Hartlepool, who have just been re-promoted to League One (the third tier of English soccer, behind the Premiership and Championship), are on 9 points from four games - three straight wins after a loss at the beginning of the season.

With both team scoring the same amount of goals - 9 - the two in-form teams will square off at Elland Road, Leeds’ 40,000 all-seater stadium in Yorkshire. This is, without doubt, Hartlepool’s biggest ever League game in the modern soccer era.

Could I get tickets, though? Could I hell. Luckily my brother works in Leeds, and he was able to secure three tickets - one for me, two for my brethren - in the Leeds Family Stand, i.e. the home end. With my hands secured firmly underneath my arse and a roll of duct tape over the bottom half of my face, I should be able to hold back the screams of happiness should Hartlepool overcome this lot.

The gravity of the situation is unparalleled. Hartlepool have already dispatched Oldham, Doncaster and Port Vale - three teams who were challenging for promotion the season before. Oldham, in fact, were in the playoffs and we destroyed them 4-1 in my first match of the season at Fortress Hartlepool.

A win away from home at Leeds United would be phenomenal. Morale boost and 3 points in the bag, our team would feel unstoppable and our fans would be bouncing about for weeks to come.

With a win yesterday at Chesterfield (or CHEATerfield as they’re known) in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy (which I think is sponsored by Disney too given it’s a joke of a competition), we’re on a roll. With the strongest team I’ve seen in my entire life as a Pools fan, I think we may just be able to do it.

If you see Pools have won and I don’t ever write again, you’ll know I died - happy - at the hands of irate Leodensians whilst chanting “Hartlepool, la la la, Hartlepool, la la la!”