Pools getting ready for the big one - Carlisle

From the dressing room to the stands, everybody at Victoria Park is agreed - the countdown to the big one is gathering pace. The big one being, of course, next Tuesday's League One home game against Carlisle United. Before that, though, Pools have an FA Cup fourth round game at home to a team called West Ham, who are allegedly based in London.

The Cup-tie is a bit of a nuisance because it's meant the postponement of another League One game, but there is a bit of consolation in the fact that it's taking Pools earnings in the competition past the £300,000 mark, and that's not bad when the gates have been so poor this season and when we are told that everybody in the North East is either on the dole or heading that way.
Caretaker manager Chris Turner has already said that the two games either side of West Ham, Northampton last weekend and Carlisle on Tuesday night, are the really important ones. The Cup-tie is a bonus for all concerned.
But that didn't stop Richiue Humphreys and some of his team-mates watchjing West Ham at Newcastle two weeks ago when their game at Oldham was off.
Pools did the necessary by beating Northampton 2-0, at the same time getting some evidence that there are teams a lot worse than them in League One.
If they can beat Carlisle as well, their League One prospects will be a lot brighter.
Beating West Ham is a totally different matter. They have shown a big improvement in the Premiership in recent weeks and Gianfranco Zola now appears to be making a good job of things, selling that nice man Craig Bellamy for an unbelievable £14 to daft Manchester City showing that he and his club know how to do things.
Pools have already beaten an embarrasingly poor Stoke in the FA Cup and a misfiring West Brom in the Carling Cup, but we reckon the Hammers will be a totally different proposition.
For the first time we can remember a match from the Vic is live on terrestrial telly, it will be an occasion and there's always a chance of an upset - that's why the telly are there.
But it's not the real thing is it?