Official West Hartlepool RFC

Mallinson scored three tries, not a hat-trick

A trilogy no doubt

Oseander is, of course, quite correct as Luke did not score three consecutive tries. My apologies. However, our second clean sheet away from home deprives Oseander of another opportunity to criticise the tackling - so that’s a bonus.

A hat trick in cricket is three wickets in consecutive balls but in other sports it is often scoring three goals or three tries etc in a game. I note that Jota scored three non consecutive goals for Leicester which is being described by the BBC as a hat-trick. And as a former leading sports journalist has just reminded me Brian Glanville was happy to use the term for non-consecutive scores.

A Trinity of Tries - with it being a Sunday 😐

You've ruined my Sunday, DP. I've told half of Cairo Mallo scored a hat trick. Doh! I hope somebody will mention it to that fraudster Geoff Hurst who's been fooling us all for over 50 years.

Now - how many goals did we score?

" There's some people on the pitch, they think it's all over ......... "

Did Mallo get to keep the match ball?

Don’t think Medicals would have been too happy if he’d walked off with it. They probably thought they’d been generous enough

The Cairo branch of supporters are very unhappy, Dave.

Some suggest there ought to be a hyphen in hat-trick, others suggest simply hat trick.

Mallo has done nothing but cause trouble since his return and if he'd managed to score FOUR tries then we wouldn't now be so bitterly divided!

He was lucky. First game back, hat trick (of whatever flavour) and yet no mucky pint.

Our Man in Cairo is quite correct - Mallo's lack of try scoring power since his return has caused a big divide.

I suggest a People's Vote.

I think some kind of incentive is needed to dissuade people from scoring hat tricks, hat-tricks and/or tricks of the hat.

Anyone who can score 4 tries, thus securing a BP all on their own, will get a special prize.

I can personally donate a signed box set of " Casbah Chronicles - The Andrew Hainsworth Diaries Vols I,II and IV " to the first player who can achieve this feat.

Do not create white line fever

I think that's more of a Soccer player trend - esp at Arsenal. We should be ok 😉

I can personally donate a signed box set of " Casbah Chronicles


Be careful what you wish for ...

That's a much better off than mine Stan, thank you. For some reason my box set is missing Vol III - "Wadi Wanderer-The Wilderness Years" 😞

I worked in Gloucester from 1990 - 1995 and I used to help with the Gloucester Primary Schools Football Association. They have an impressive match day programme that I write for occasionally. Stan is known as The Voice of Football.

Oi, Ringo! You owe me a radio

Mark Ring of Cardiff and Wales, Ahmed the Camel Owner of Giza, the mighty Pharaoh Chepren, Michael Davies of Aberystwyth and now Sydney – may a plague of deadly fleas infest your armpits and drive you mad with furious scratching. And while I am in the mood, Master William Webb Ellis isn’t top of my Christmas list either. And Lord Sugar – you’re fired, too.

If you’re here today you must love sport. You probably spend every waking hour either training or playing or watching. Or ferrying your precious angels to the next fixture. I genuinely pity the poor soul who doesn’t enjoy the thrills and spills of locking horns, enjoying a mighty contest then shaking hands and retiring to the clubhouse or pavilion to relive the drama.

The highlight of my time in Gloucester was undoubtedly the double header: overseeing a B Team victory, then a quick hot dog roll from Sandra Hickey (cunningly added to Ken Blackburn’s account) before the honour of running the line for the A team. If that isn’t the morning of kings and queens, then I don’t know what is.

But it all comes at a price. And sometimes paying that price can be a terrible burden.

Let us go back to 1988 when the Voice was living in Cairo. The world was a vastly different place in those days. There was no internet and no satellite television and no mobile phones. To find out how newcastle United had got on, you could tune into the BBC World Service. But to find out how Hartlepool United had got on you had to pay the security guard a modest bakeseesh and sort through all the news on the live teleprinter (a bit like ‘Grandstand’ for older readers.)

When it came to Rugby, it was sheer agony. The only way to listen was via the World Service but where we lived in Heliopolis the reception was really terrible. So when it came to England vs Wales we decided to head out to the Giza plateau and listen to the game in the shadow of the mighty Pyramids.

It was a confusing for the locals. There was my wife, Jane, and I plus Mike Davies and his wife Mair, both Welsh speakers. We set up camp in the shadow of the great Pyramid and enjoyed perfect reception. We refused all efforts to buy souvenirs, took no pictures and then sat listening to a game that nobody from Cairo had ever seen. Unfortunately in those days, England weren’t quite the force they are now and the silky skills of Mark Ring saw Wales ease to victory. England had enjoyed a good run and to lose to Wales, once again, was bitterly disappointing.


At this point Ahmed came over and asked if we wanted a camel ride. I wasn’t in the mood but Ahmed was a decent bloke who spoke good English and I explained my bad mood. Spotting my state-of-the art Amstrad radio he offered me a ridiculously low price for it. I had no intention of selling it but, unwisely, I made a counter offer. The deal was on.

As anybody who has wandered the souks of Morocco or the fabulous bazaar in Istanbul, the Eastern way of life is infinitely more complex world than popping into Asda.

‘I tell you what, my friend. You big man, good looking man, you have big muscles. Why don’t we settle this like men?’ Ahmed played to the gallery.

‘Go on, Andy! Do it for England! Be a man,’ Mike helpfully chipped in.

‘Okay, Andy, my friend. Here is the deal. We arm-wrestle. I am win – you give me the radio for a pound. You are win, you keep radio and you all get free camel ride round all the Pyramids and your beautiful wife, I give her this bracelet. What you lose?’

Let us look at the combatants. In the Egyptian corner was Ahmed weighing in at about seven stone. He was about forty five. Fighting for England and Saint George we had the young Voice, tipping the scales at around thirteen stones and at only twenty four, still in his fighting prime.

It looked a safe bet. Impress my wife, restore national pride and win a free trip around one of the Seven Wonders of the World. A small crowd of Japanese tourists, fellow camel owners and souvenir sellers gathered around us.

I took in the scene. Ahead of me was the largest city in Africa. To my right, the ancient Pyramids and my prized radio. Behind me lay the vast Sahara desert. What a venue for my impending triumph, as we laid on our fronts and gripped each other’s right hands.

Ahmed had probably worked in the family business since he was just a small boy. He was wiry, lean and – I realised rather too late - immensely powerful. He slammed my hand into the dust to cheers from the crowd. Even Mrs. Voice was cheering. (‘Well, he was such lovely bloke,’ she explained later once she’d stopped laughing and I had stopped sulking.)

Helpfully, Mike passed Ahmed the radio and Mair took the pound as I dusted myself down. It had been a miserable day. We jammed ourselves into a taxi and battled our way across the city. In an uncharacteristically generous mood, Mike paid for the taxi but as he fumbled for change he didn’t quite have enough.
‘You got a quid there, Andy?’

Dearest reader. The GPSFA is a family organisation so you’ll have to guess at my reply to Mike.

The Gods of Sport have strange sense of humour. Many years later, Mark Ring came to be Coach at the mighty West Hartlepool RUFC. After a few hours in the clubhouse, I mentioned my bitter loss to Mr. Ring.

Dearest reader. The GPSFA is a family organisation so you’ll have to guess at his reply to the Voice.