by Andrew Dobson
Back to Saturday 22nd October 1988 as the Alex travelled to the Victoria Ground in Hartlepool to take on Bobby Moncur’s side.
In front of 1972 spectators we lined up –
Greygoose, Swain, Edwards, Callaghan,Macowat, Jones, Jasper, Murphy, Cronin, Gardiner,Fishenden. Substitutes Billing and Morton.
Promotion chasing Crewe achieved their best result so far according to manager Dario Gradi after Hartlepool looked as though they were going to bury us in the first twenty minutes.
According to Dario we were so bad he didn’t see much point in shouting!
Dale Jasper, Paul Fishenden,Kenny Swain and Aidan Murphy then practiced a free kick which had never rehearsed and the game changed as Murphy put us one up as Hartlepool chased the game in the second half Mark Gardiner got behind their defence to lay on Fishenden’s fifth goal of the season and completed the scoring with a 90th minute chip with his right foot!
The Alex moved up to fifth place, two points behind leaders Rotherham which delighted Dario but he bemoaned that fact that we had conceded too many soft goals and should be top !!
