Pools Drop
The famous poem 'Adlestrop' was written during the First World War about a short stop at a country railway station that its author, Edward Thomas had experienced on a train journey just before the war.
Thomas went off to fight in the war and in Spring 1917 he was killed at the Battle of Arras, and the poem was published just three weeks later.
Thomas went off to fight in the war and in Spring 1917 he was killed at the Battle of Arras, and the poem was published just three weeks later.
Then a century later, almost to the day, Pools' defeat at Cheltenham left them at the mercy of Newport and subsequent relegation.
Pools Drop
Yes, I remember Hartlepool –
The name, because one day
Of spring, their league days ended there.
Unwontedly. It was early May.
The gates were locked, this final time.
All had gone from that last game.
And on the steel wall, what I saw
Was Hartlepool – once a famous name.
And now impending doom was there,
With vultures circling overhead,
Incompetence had squashed the dreams
Of thousands, and those dreams lay dead.
And for that minute a seagull cried
Close by, and round him, angrier,
Farther and farther, all the fans
Of Hartlepool cried in their beer.
'Pools Drop' by Bill the Biro