It says all you need to know about this match that the local seagulls provided the best entertainment.
Most of the crowd had departed when hundreds of birds swooped to locate their terrace targets — discarded chips, burgers and pies — with far more accuracy and efficiency than was witnessed in the previous 90 minutes.
It was a spectacular show that clearly fascinated and occasionally threatened the Burton Albion players in their warm-down after a match between teams now separated by the length of the Sky Bet League Two table.
Here, however, the only tangible difference between them was Florent Cuvelier, who was involved for just eight minutes, enough to produce the game’s solitary item of quality that accelerated Burton Albion’s progress towards promotion and moved Hartlepool United closer to relegation.
Cuvelier, an attack-minded midfielder signed on loan from Sheffield United two days earlier, went on as an 84th-minute substitute, scored the decisive goal in the 90th and went off because of a thigh strain in the 92nd.
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“It was my opportunity to impress, so it was great to get the goal,” Cuvelier said. “I’ve been here for two days and already know these players have a great determination to be in League One.”
Cuvelier’s horizons are even higher as he attempts to revive a career that promised so much four years ago when he joined Stoke City, who loaned him to Walsall and Peterborough United before a move to Bramall Lane.
“The good thing about football is things change very quickly, especially in England where somebody can make the jump from League Two to the Premier League,” he said.
Ronnie Moore, the Hartlepool manager, said: “It was a horrible game. I don’t think they were better than us.”
By then the seagulls had tidied away the debris and departed, but the vultures are surely circling for his team.
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Hartlepool United (4-4-2): S Flinders — N Austin, S Harrison, D Mirfin, D Jones — J Jones, N Featherstone, A Tshibola, J Compton (sub: J Franks, 63min) — M Harewood (sub: C Smith, 62), R Bird (sub: M Morgan, 80). Substitutes not used: J Maxted, B Walker, J Richards, M Duckworth. Booked: Tshibola.
Burton Albion (4-4-2): J McLaughlin — P Edwards, J Mousinho, S Cansdell-Sherriff, D McCrory — L Akins, T Naylor, R Weir, M Palmer (sub: F Cuvelier, 84; sub: G Taft, 90) — S Beavon, M Antoine-Curier (sub: A El Khayati, 74). Substitutes not used: S Shearer, J Phillips, L Slade, M Harness. Booked: Akins.