Hartlepool United

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Hartlepool United
Logo Hartlepool United.gif
Basic data
Surname Hartlepool United Football Club
Seat Hartlepool , England
founding 1908
Website hartlepoolunited.co.uk
First soccer team
Head coach Dave Challinor
Venue Victoria Park , Hartlepool
Places 7,787
league National League
2019/20 12th place
home
Away

Hartlepool United (officially: Hartlepool United Football Club ) - also known as Pools - is an English football club from Hartlepool , Northeast England , which plays its home games in Victoria Park .

history

Founding time

In 1905, the amateur club FC West Hartlepool won the FA Amateur Cup , which at that time was the second most important English cup competition after the FA Cup . After this success, the opportunity to install a professional team seemed favorable in 1908, with the rugby club of West Hartlepool also just going bankrupt and the Victoria Ground stadium standing empty. The football club was called Hartlepool's United Football Athletic Company at the time it was founded , the plural name being due to the fact that the club represented both the city of West Hartlepool and the original settlement in Old Hartlepool . At the same time, the club bought the venue that had become vacant.

The new team joined the North Eastern League , with many players coming from the club FC West Hartlepool, which only played a few seasons before it broke up and Hartlepools United remained the only club in town. From the outset, the club had to contend with financial problems, which were exacerbated when a zeppelin bombed the stadium during the First World War in 1916 and destroyed the main stand. Later attempts to assert reparation claims against Germany were unsuccessful.

Admission to professional football

Hartlepools United tried several times for inclusion in the Football League . The regional proximity to clubs such as Sunderland , Newcastle United and Middlesbrough FC initially led to these clubs being preferred. When the FA decided in 1920 to create a further substructure in the form of a third division, which, however, consisted almost entirely of clubs from the previous Southern League , initially only Grimsby Town as the only northern English club was allowed access. This imbalance was corrected the following year, however, when an additional third division was created for the north, whose founding members included both Hartlepool and main competitor Darlington FC .

Despite a promising start with fourth place at the end of the first season, Hartlepool could not celebrate any successes worth mentioning and had to fight several times to stay in the league. In the mid- 50s , the club experienced a high phase, when it was able to reach the fourth round in the FA Cup in 1955 and only narrowly missed the championship in the third division two years later. On January 5, 1957, the club recorded its current visitor record with 17,426 spectators in the FA Cup game against Manchester United . After the coach's death in 1958, relegation to the newly established Fourth Division followed at the end of the following season as bottom of the table.

The Brian Clough Era

Hartlepool's time as a fourth division club was characterized by sporting struggles for survival, although the status as a professional club could often only be defended very narrowly. The performance improved from 1965 with the new coaching duo Brian Clough and Peter Taylor (who later celebrated great success for Nottingham Forest ) significantly and in the 1967/68 season, Clough's last season for Hartlepools, the club managed to move up to third in the table Division . The club's first stay in this league since it had become single-track lasted only a year and led to direct relegation.

Renaming and sporting struggles for existence

In 1977 the club renamed itself to the single form Hartlepool United, which is still valid today , taking into account the fact that West Hartlepool had merged with Old Hartlepool in 1967.

When in the 1985/86 season the procedure for remaining in the lowest English professional league was switched to a play-off mode, Hartlepool benefited from this, at a time when the club often feared direct relegation and always with the FA had to ask for the return to the league. The club had finished fourteen seasons bottom of the table and was still not relegated after a respective application for a return to the professional league, which is a record in this frequency to this day.

Recent developments

From then on, the trend was up again and Hartlepool succeeded again with a third place in 1991, climbing into the third division for the second time, where they now remain for three years in the league called " Second Division " from 1992 until 1994, when they were relegated should.

The return to the lowest English professional league was marked by increasing financial difficulties and the descent to the amateur camp could only be avoided in five consecutive seasons. In the 1999/2000 season, the club was able to develop positively again by qualifying at the end of the season for participation in the play-offs for promotion to the third division. There you could, however, as in the two following years, when you also reached the elimination games, not prevail. Overall, the club had stabilized under the coaches Chris Turner and Neale Cooper and was solidly managed by the new Norwegian owners.

The second place at the end of the 2002/03 season was then synonymous with direct promotion to the Second Division. There a march through and the first promotion to the second division, the First Division , seemed possible after the club had qualified for the play-offs with sixth place at the end of its first season. There Hartlepool lost after a draw in the first leg against Bristol City and was eliminated. This season Hartlepool's Eifion Williams was called up to the Welsh national team, but missed due to an injury that he became the second international in the history of the club. In the following season, the club again reached sixth place and then beat the Tranmere Rovers 6-5 on penalties in the play-off semifinals , after both teams had previously won 2-0 each. In the final, Sheffield Wednesday lost 4-2 after extra time .

In the 2005/06 season, the club fought against relegation and ended up being fourth from bottom of the Football League Two gang . After only one year, however, the club returned directly to the third division as fourth division runner-up behind FC Walsall .

Hartlepool caused two cup shocks in the 2008-09 season. They beat Premier League club West Bromwich Albion 3-1, in the League Cup, in August. Hartlepool defeated Premier League team Stoke City 2-0 in the FA Cup Third Round in January 2009. Hartlepool lost in the fourth round to West Ham United . Hartlepool finished the season in 19th in League One.

In the 2014–15 season, Hartlepool survived relegation from League Two at the conference. It would have been the first time the club had been outside the league since 1920. The club was in the relegation zone from September to March and confirmed safety in late April 2015 with a 2-1 home win over Exeter City .

Others

Stuart Drummond , previously always disguised as the club mascot H'Angus the Monkey , was elected Mayor of Hartlepool in 2002, although the candidacy with slogans such as free bananas for school children was only planned as a publicity stunt .

Since 1987, Hartlepool fans have been traveling to the last away game in disguise. This tradition peaked in the summer of 2012 when 200 fans dressed as Smurfs traveled to the Charlton Athletic game.

League affiliation

Trainer

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.11freunde.de/interview/200-fans-aus-hartlepool-reisen-nach-charlton-im-schlumpfkostuem