Monkey Business
Hartlepool United vs Wealdstone, Victoria Park, National League, 15th November 2025
It’s the international break.
Again.
Liz has volunteered to help with a Christmas Fair on Saturday morning, which leaves us slightly short of football clubs to visit that:
Are close enough to get to and
We haven’t been to before.
In short, there aren’t any that fit both of these criteria. But never mind - there’s always Hartlepool. As the saying goes.1 We’ve both visited Hartlepool many times before. Ben’s sister even lives there, right on the waterfront like a (land-based) pirate. But somehow Liz has never been to the football. Ben has - he once took the kids on a cold, wet afternoon in winter. It was freezing, the kids were bored rigid and Hartlepool lost. Unsurprising, really, that Ben has never made it back again.
We nearly don’t make it this time. For some unknown reason (probably similar to its ridiculous insistence last year that the Tyne Tunnel did not exist) the SatNav insists that the Tees Flyover no longer exists, and that we need to take a rather more lengthy and complex route via Port Clarence. We ignore the SatNav, instead relying on EyeAndBrainNav. As we cross the flyover it commands in increasingly shrill tones: ‘Return to the route! Return to the route!’ To add to the cacophony of panic, the car starts pinging to tell us that we’re nearly out of petrol. We should have taken the bus.
Hartlepool is large town and has a lot of history, from the Saints Aidan and Hilda who established an abbey there, through significant bombing in the FIrst World War, to industrial decline in the 21st century. It’s a solid place with a strong sense of identity. We call in to visit Ben’s sister and brother-in-law and have a cup of tea before we head to the ground. They’re expecting delivery of an inflatable Santa Claus in a pirate ship to put on their balcony, but instead have received what looks like a small, grey laundry basket. It makes you wonder how the two have been confused …2
Eventually, we make it to the ground. It’s grey and raining but not too cold and windy, and the ground is built in a way that feels like it shelters the pitch and the fans from the worst of the weather coming off the North Sea - which it must do, quite often. Like Hartlepool itself, it feels like a strong, solid place, with a loyal crowd inside.
Now, let us tell you about the monkey.
We couldn’t go to Hartlepool and not mention their mascot, H’Angus the monkey. He’s famous … nay, more than famous, LEGENDARY!
The story goes that back to the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain feared invasion by the French, a ship was wrecked just off Hartlepool. Amongst the survivors washed ashore was a monkey, which chattered in a strange language that the people of Hartlepool couldn’t understand. They had never seen a monkey before. They had also never seen a French person, and so … conclusions were drawn. Not only was the monkey French, but if French, it must be a dangerous spy. So they hung the monkey. Two hundred years later, the people of Hartlepool are still referred to as ‘Monkey Hangers’, and when they chose a mascot for the football team, it had to be a monkey. It didn’t help to dispel the myth when in 2002 the people of Hartlepool elected H’Angus the Monkey as Mayor, when he ran on a ticket of ‘free bananas for school children’. 3 Simpler times.
But we’re not here for the monkey, we’re here for the football. Well, we’re partially here for the monkey, let’s be honest.
‘I hope it’s a more exciting match than the last one I came to …’ Ben reminisces as the game kicks off. Well, within three minutes Hartlepool have scored. Two minutes later their opponents, Wealdstone, have equalised with an absolutely stunning goal. It’s looking good for a fairly end-to-end game full of excitement and goals aplenty! However, it isn’t long before the game has settled down, and though Hartlepool look the most likely team to get a winner, the frantic pace of the early minutes doesn’t continue. At 90 minutes the score is the same as it was at 5, it ends 1-1. It was a good game though, and a nice afternoon out - just up the road.
Speaking of roads, we placate the car by ending our trip to Hartlepool at the petrol station, before popping into a seriously huge ASDA to buy a serious amount of crisps. After all, Ben was once a crisp sensation - as he frequently reminds Liz…
The saying we’ve just made up.
Footnote: the actual inflatable pirate ship arrived a couple of days later and looks TREMENDOUS!
Did the children of Hartlepool ever get their bananas, we wonder?