Hartlepool United boss grateful for Landon Smith support ahead of Truro trek

Nicky Featherstone has revealed Hartlepool United’s mammoth 900-mile round trip to National League rivals Truro City has forced a rethink of his side’s preparations for the game.

Pools have enjoyed the rare luxury of a free midweek during a hectic period of the season and that has allowed for reflection on last weekend’s narrow home defeat against FC Halifax Town as the Shaymen stole a march in the race for the play-offs with a goal from former Sunderland and Gateshead striker Will Harris.

However, all focus is now on the visit to the division’s bottom club and the Pools boss has confirmed his side undertook the first part of the journey on Thursday before holding a training session in Bristol prior to making their way to Truro on Friday.

He told BBC Radio Tees: “It’s slightly different to our usual preparations to be fair. We are used to travelling at Hartlepool anyway, it’s a very Southern-based league this one, so we are used to travel - but in terms of your journeys, you’re not going to get any further than this one. I think it’s just short of 450 miles one way, so it’s a 900-mile round trip for fans. We are slightly different in our preparations, we will be going today (Thursday) and spending a couple of nights, one night in Bristol and then we will do the rest of the journey on Friday after training down in Bristol.”

Difficult

Featherstone also gave thanks to the Pools hierarchy and owner Landon Smith for the financial support that has been provided for the two-day travel and hotel costs after he confirmed the club had missed out on a possible quick fix of flying to the south coast ahead of the game.

He said: “We looked at a few different options and we were quite unlucky in terms of the flights because the way the flights worked out, if the fixtures was two weeks later we would have been able to get flights down there which makes it a hell of a lot easier to prepare for. We felt going down today, training halfway and then doing the rest of the journey on the Friday was the best prep in terms of it being as close to a usual prep.

“We still get the two days of training before the game on the Saturday, we have looked at train options but you miss a day of training on the Friday and that’s when it becomes difficult because you end up sitting on a train for seven or eight hours to Plymouth - and then you have to drive an hour and a half to wherever we are staying. There’s no easy way around it but this way of doing it gives us the best prep possible and it’s credit to the football club and the ownership for doing it because there’s an expense, an added expense and they’ve given us the tools and resources to prepare for this game as best is possible.”

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