Inside the Hartlepool United dressing room as Keith Curle reveals pre-match routine changes

Curle helped guide Pools to their first league win of the season over Doncaster Rovers on Tuesday night and is enjoying a three-game unbeaten streak as interim manager.

Whilst not wanting to ‘rock the boat’ early-on during his time at the club, Curle has reiterated his desire to implement ‘minor adjustments’ to help galvanise the squad’s fortunes.

One example of this is to change the squad’s pre-match routine and to foster a team-building environment as the players take to the field.

Curle said: “One thing I’ve changed before the game is the players go out and do their warm-up and when they come back in, normally they have music on to create an atmosphere with music.

“It’s not because it’s music that I don’t like, but [pre-match] it creates a false atmosphere and people can hide in it.

“When the players come off the pitch, I don’t want any music, I want to hear the players talking, encouraging, organising because then you’re going out on the front foot with people talking to you, rather than listening to, well I don’t know who they’re listening to as they all sound the same to me!

“But again it’s just another little minor adjustment that the players have to get used to because this is our environment, this is our home changing room, we create our atmosphere and when we walk down this tunnel, there is an atmosphere here that we need to buy into.”

Curle’s pre-match dressing room changes clearly had the desired effect on Tuesday night, but what was it like post-match?

“I walked in, I only needed four or five minutes for my message, and then I was like, why is there no music playing? I don’t think they’re used to winning,” Curle admitted.

“It was good to be able to shuffle the pack with the bench with a good understanding of [the strengths] of the players coming off the bench.

“The important thing that shows is the unity we are trying to gel in the squad. Even if you’re not in the starting team, you’re still a massive part of the team.”