MIKE Newell took over at Hartlepool United in an unusual position; he left the club in equally different circumstances.

Few managers join a club sitting pretty at the top of the table and even fewer are axed after leading the club to promotion.

But, as Pool go to Luton tonight to meet up with their former manager for the third time since his departure from Pool and subsequent appointment at Kenilworth Road in the summer of 2003, you would be hard pushed to find anyone at Victoria Park who would disagree with the change of manager after promotion.

Pool have positively flourished under Neale Cooper and Martin Scott and it's hard to imagine that things would have gone so well if a change at the top hadn't taken place. Pool stuttered through the final throwes of Newell's reign and the momentum which took Pool to the play-offs three years running was drifting away.

But Newell has equally flourished at Luton and lifted them to the top of the table thanks to an unbeaten start to the season. Bracketed in the group marked out as "promising young English managers", his stock is on the up.

Newell arrived at Pool in November 2002 and admitted he was in a difficult position - taking over from one of the most popular bosses in the club's history in Chris Turner.

But despite being only the third man to lead Pool out of the bottom division, the biggest event he will be remembered for is being in charge when a 14-point lead at the top of the table was lost.

After leaving Feethams with such a healthy advantage on March 1, Pool had 12 games to go. The first piece of silverware was surely heading for Victoria Park.

But an awful month - one win, four goals scored, nine conceded - set the tone and April wasn't much better - two wins from six.

By the time Pool went to Nene Park on May 3, the title was Rushden's to lose. It should already have been locked away in the Victoria Park safe.

And the fans never forgave him for it.

Newell never took to the fans, the fans never took to him and, at a club like Pool where the two are so close, it's a recipe for disaster.

He was, after all, the manager who verbally confronted the supporters on stage at the club's player of the year night three days before promotion was clinched with a 4-0 reverse at Scunthorpe.

"If you lot believed in this bunch of lads as much as we do then we wouldn't have a problem,'' he told a packed - and astonished - house.

When promotion arrived in bizarre circumstances at Glanford Park, there was as many calls for his head as there was in celebrating going up a division.

But the players were firm believers in Newell and his ways. Always first out on the training ground and at the front of the queue when it came to long distance runs, Newell was a players' manager.

Before last season's first return to Victoria Park, Newell admitted: "There are a lot of nice people up there who I got on well with. But there are some who have a problem with me.

"Perhaps it's because we lost the title and a 14-point lead, but that's in the past and there's nothing I can do about it now.

"I did my best and none of the players had a problem with me, but I can't affect how the supporters think of me."

But if the sack from Victoria Park was a stain on his CV, it has been cleaned up after making a success of managing Luton.

The club was in crisis when he took control, but he led them to verge of the play-offs last season before embarking on a title challenge this time out.

He was among the favourites for the Blackburn manager's job last month and is on the verge of signing a new deal to stay at Luton.

Strange how things work out.

Read more about Hartlepool here.