GAME AFTER game, week after week, Hartlepool United contrive to find new low points. And with each passing week part of the club’s spirit, heart and heritage is being chipped away.

From relegation to the Football League, to insipid defeats to Dover, Maidenhead and Bromley, Pools managed to stoop to a whole new level on Saturday.

Make no mistake, this abject dross in losing to AFC Fylde was as bad as anything served up at Victoria Park over the years.

There’s been some bad teams and bad players to have represented the club over the years. At least they had some semblance of fight or pride in what they did. The majority of this rabble offer nothing. Nothing at all.

They don’t run, they don’t chase or close down, are outrun by opponents. Creating chances? It’s an alien concept. It was 88 minutes before they won a corner, minutes earlier Liam Donnelly bobbled a low shot wide from 25 yards. It was their first shot of the day.

Pools have taken two points from 18 in the National League this season. They have lost to two of the teams promoted into the division.

On Saturday, they didn’t even manage a shot on target in 90 minutes of football. If it can be called football that is.

Optimism was around in the summer that the club had bottomed out and would make a fight of an instant Football League return. They have showed nothing of the sort.

For the fifth time in six games, Pools lined up with a new formation and again it was changed in play. Again they conceded a stupid goal to go a goal behind, which left them chasing the game.

They played one striker up front at home and clawed every player back to defend corners against Fylde.

How ambitious for a team with three goals to their name this season – one of those a penalty. Ironic that Padraig Amond, the striker who left last week after admitting how miserable life was for him at Pools, scored and created another on his Newport debut on Saturday.

Pools were booed off by the few supporters left inside Victoria Park. How many will return on Saturday? The attendance was 1,000 down on the opening day’s gate.

There’s nothing to entice them in is there? This decline has been a few years in the making and there’s no sign of it ending. On Saturday the good folk of Hartlepool, as passionate about their team as anyone, had had enough.

Pools are at Guiseley this afternoon. Nothing less than a convincing win and much-improved performance will do: are these players capable of it?

Scott Harrison is likely to be missing today, after he was carted off on Saturday with a metatarsal injury.

He had already been embarrassed once by Fylde’s Danny Rowe, when the striker ran at him in behind right-back Liam Donnelly.

Second time he eased by him again, this time picking out Henry Jones – unmarked in the area – to steer home.

Once again Pools trailed in a game this season.

So where was the response? The fight? The willingness to go that extra yard?

Instead, they gifted last season’s Conference North winners a second. Rowe scored 50 times last campaign, so Pools left him unmarked in the area to score.

“I’m more frustrated for the fans out there, they go away frustrated again and I don’t want that again,’’ reflected boss Craig Harrison. “I will work as hard as I can and every hour I can to improve things and make it as best as possible. We need something to happen.

“We need to not go a goal down in the first half and stay in games and not be left chasing it. It’s all about small margins – and conceding gives us an uphill battle.

“There’s nothing in the game, then 99.9 per cent of times the teams that concede least will win the league. Clean sheets is where football is built on. We haven’t given ourselves a base.

“We aren’t scoring either, it’s a circle we can’t break. We are conceding poor goals and not scoring and conceding at poor times. We aren’t getting a foothold in the game. We haven’t been good enough in both the attacking third and defensive third.’’

He added: “It’s a tough time for us. When you haven’t won in six it’s tough. No-one wants it, me and the players. We have to dust ourselves down and accept the criticism and accept the frustration from outside and off the pitch. That’s life. Don’t do the job well and you are under pressure – players, managers, football staff. It’s fact.’’