HARTLEPOOL UNITED’S players are enjoying playing football again, but Ronnie Moore can’t understand why they were not feeling that way in the first place.

Pools head for play-off contenders Newport County this afternoon when a fifth straight win could extend the gap to the relegation zone to four points, less than a week finally moving off the bottom, a position occupied since October.

The run has brought smiles and confidence back to the faces of the players and Moore, who took over in December, still wonders why that was not the case months ago – even when they were rooted to the foot of the division.

Moore said: “My job is to make players run around for 90 minutes and if they do they might get appearance money to go with their weekly wage. And if you’re a striker you might even get a bonus for scoring!

“Where else would you get that? Football is crackers. Players should enjoy being a footballer, you should enjoy that. Even at this level. Some players here are on £200 a week ... some kids here are on that. But their day will come. It will increase. They should still enjoy being a footballer though.

“How many people out there want to be a footballer? I would be a footballer and I would take that chance, I would take that pay for a while, take that chance.

“You want to play for as long as you can. You see some of the faces in training, down in the dumps, why? You’re a footballer! You might not be playing but you might be the week after.”

Moore felt like he was the only man with a smile on his face in his first week in charge at Victoria Park, given the club’s plight at the foot of League Two. Fast-forward nearly five months and things are a lot different given the massive turnaround – even in the stands.

“It’s great to be here, trying to help this club stay in the Football League,” said Moore. “When I first came in it was like ‘do they want to be here?’

“The fans have been great too. There were 3,500 when we were bottom of the league. Where else would you see that?

“We had 5,000 on Saturday when we beat Cambridge and we were still bottom of the league beforehand. To get those numbers in was great. In the last month I wondered whether people believed but they clearly do, you see that gap moving down to six and then to three.

“Then there’s a point in it suddenly and everyone believes. I would have got locked up a month ago for even thinking it.”

The 62-year-old’s work in the Football League spans four decades, so knows all about what it takes to get results at that level. That is why he has regularly explained to his players that there is not a great gulf between the teams at the top and bottom of the division.

The four-match winning run has backed his thoughts up and he is looking for the feelgood factor to continue at Newport and then against Southend on Monday – and thinks Jonathan Franks has a crucial role to play.

Franks still has his critics at the Vic, but the former Middlesbrough forward has shown greater consistency in recent weeks – and Moore believes he could continue if he stopped sulking when things are not going his way.

“He does have his moaners because I have them behind me in the stands, and I have been one of his biggest,” said Moore, who hopes to have midfielder Aaron Tshibola available despite a groin problem.

“He has ability, undoubted ability. The biggest problem with him is, is he a striker or a winger? If you ask him he would probably say striker. He does fill both roles, he has played wide for us and he has ability.

“I think it was Mansfield where I changed him out wide and he had his bottom lip out. We had to clip him round the ear at half-time. It was for the team and not for him. It’s how we win as a team and not for him. It’s not about throwing the dummy out. We have to pick a team to win a game and it’s not about the individual.

“I keep saying to him he has two strings to his bow, if he is a striker who can also play wide then he gives me two options. I say don’t say you’re a striker because you have two opportunities to play in different systems.

“He can even play in the pocket too as a No 10. He has the ability to float around. He should enjoy playing wide or up front at his age. Sometimes wingers are starved of the ball, but it’s about enjoying being a footballer.”