Pool up, but there's no party

That is the how events unfolded at Glanford Park after Pool suffered an embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Scunthorpe, who are chasing a play-off place themselves.

This was supposed to have been party time for the boys in blue and white. Instead it was as though the Victoria Park club had been condemned to life in the Nationwide Conference.

Such was the below par performance by Newell's men that the dejected Pool chief disappeared into the dressing room without finding out that fourth placed Bournemouth had failed to win at Hull - meaning losing to Scunthorpe suddenly became irrelevant, to a degree.

"I honestly didn't know," said Newell, who had his players in training yesterday ahead of today's home clash with Rochdale. "I have gone in the changing rooms and said a couple of things about the goals and the defeat.

"But I have told them to get their heads up and let's get it done on Monday.

"I can honestly say, though, coming up that tunnel that I didn't know we had won promotion.

"I wasn't taking any notice of what was going on in the stands, I was too wrapped up in things on the pitch. But it is a quite flat and a disappointing way to go up."

For the near 2,000 visiting supporters that made the trip to north Lincolnshire, there were a few minutes celebration just after half-time when news filtered through from Hull of Bournemouth's plight.

But that was that, as Pool slipped from the top of the Third Division for the first time since Boxing Day and Rushden and Diamonds took pole position in the race for the title.

In March, Pool's hunt for their first trophy looked well on the cards as they started the month 14 points clear - now they are two points behind the League's new leaders.

But in a bid to lift deflated fans' spirits Newell praised his predecessor, Chris Turner, for the squad he inherited and he warned Rushden they are desperate to reclaim top spot as soon as possible.

"Promotion is a great achievement," said Newell, a former Premiership winner with Blackburn. "It's credit to the players and it's a credit to Chris Turner and Colin West for the players who they left at this club.

"If you'd have said at the start of the season we were going to get promoted everyone would have taken it.

"But because we have been at the top for so long it's the championship we now want.

"It would be desperately disappointing to miss out on it but there are three games left and nine points to play for.

"We have got two home games left Rochdale and Shrewsbury and if we get maximum points out of them then we will go to Rushden May 3 with a chance.

"I don't think it will be difficult to pick the players up but they are disappointed in the dressing room because they have got used to winning games.

"It hurts that they are not on top of the League anymore and that's a good thing. We have got a carrot dangling in front of us now and that's to win the next two games before we go to Rushden."

Perhaps the victory Pool craved at Scunthorpe was never on the cards anyway - you have to go back to March 1990 to find a favourable scoreline for the North-East outfit.

And to make matters worse, Newell's side have not won on their travels since January 21's success at Macclesfield, a run which has now extended to eight games.

But The Iron - without influential skipper Peter Beagrie through suspension - were also in the midst of a bad spell and could boast just one victory in five matches prior to Saturday.

Pool started the brighter and Ritchie Humphreys - who has previously spent time on loan at Scunthorpe - and Mark Tinkler combined before the latter volleyed over the bar.

The turning point in the match, though, came on 24 minutes when Pool front-man Kevin Henderson joined Ryan Giggs and Ronnie Rosenthal in thelist of worst misses in football.

After Darrell Clarke closed down goalkeeper Tom Evans, following Mark Jackson's weak back pass, the ball rebounded off Clarke and fell kindly for work-horse Henderson.

The former Burnley man had time to take a touch but, with an empty goal at his mercy, his left foot shot from 12 yards hit the side netting - simply awful and he will no doubt have had nightmares about that on Saturday night.

Six minutes later the visitors were one down. Ex-Newcastle forward Paul Dalglish's flick over the Pool defence put Paul Hayes clear and the striker struck low past Anthony Williams.

Matt Sparrow, who caused problems with a number of flying runs, caused numerous problems on the left flank and Williams got down on one occasion to stop one of the winger's shots.

For the first 20 minutes after the restart Pool were again the better side but were finding the home side's defence tough to breakdown.

Substitute Wayne Graves was alert to block a Ritchie Humphreys drive and Henderson's curling effort flew just wide.

But, when an equaliser seemed inevitable, Pool defender Chris Westwood, impressive until this point, was caught out just inside the Scunthorpe half and goalscorer Hayes broke down the left.

Hayes played in former Darlington man Martin Carruthers and he shot beyond Williams after 72 minutes.

With nine minutes to go Carruthers headed in his 21st goal of the season from a Dalglish, son of former Newcastle boss Kenny, corner.

And then Dalglish, on loan from Blackpool, delivered another pin-point corner for Alex Calvo-Garcia to head in with five minutes left.

The scoreline could have been much worse for Pool but Anthony Williams had earlier made two outstanding stops to deny Dalglish and Carruthers - who were able to waltz through the Pool defence with ease.

The devastating blow to Pool's title chances has left Newell clear in his thoughts for next season's Second Division campaign and he suggested he will be busy in the transfer market during the close-season.

He said: "We knew the quality we had here when we came in and looked at it for a couple of weeks. We knew we didn't need to add to it in order to go up and we have been proved right there.

"We will now be in a different division and that will be a different situation. We will have to add to it and we will need to bring in players who have played at a higher level.

"I don't think it's massive changes but you need legs and bigger engines the higher you go and we are already looking at it. We will see in the summer what we can bring in."

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