1996–97 Hartlepool United F.C. season
season of football team
During the 1996–97 English football season, Hartlepool United F.C. competed in the Football League Third Division.
Season summary
In the 1996–97 season, Hartlepool started the campaign with wins over Colchester United and Fulham, but Houchen's playing career came to an end after the fifth game of the season, against Wigan Athletic, when he retired due to a persistent knee injury. Houchen continued to bemoan referring decisions which seemed to consistently go against Hartlepool. This in turn led to continued punishments from the FA over his use of foul language towards officials. With Hartlepool on a poor run of results at the foot of the table, he left the club by mutual consent on 4 November 1996. His assistant Mick Tait led the club to a 20th-place finish, and organised a benefit match for Houchen against Middlesbrough, which raised £23,000.
There was also a change of ownership in 1997, when Harold Hornsey sold the club to an oil company called IOR.
Final league table
Results
Hartlepool United's score comes first
Results summary
Results by matchday
Legend
Football League Third Division
FA Cup
League Cup
Football League Trophy
Squad
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
References
Sources
Strange, Jonathan (2006). A Tenner and Box of Kippers: The Story of Keith Houchen.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1996–97 Hartlepool United F.C. season” is season of football team. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hartlepool, United and season, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “1996–97 Hartlepool United F.C. season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.