Forget the silently composed Bjorn Borg and the endlessly whining John McEnroe. Disregard the Red Sox and the Yankees and their ridiculous brawls. Ignore the former USSR and the USA’s tireless Olympic hockey escapades. Overlook England and Australia’s cricket shenanigans (not that I expect most of you to focus on the latter anyway). There is no rivalry like what I am about to describe to you - no rivalry at all. It encapsulates what celebrated competition between two teams is all about. It’s not in the NFL, NHL, NBA, PGA, MLB or MLS. It is not found in a North American city. It is not found in any city. It is, however, found in a region of England that I happen to live in, and involves the team I so dearly love, and another I generally regard as the team of Satan himself, should he or she exist.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me fill you in on a, no, THE Association Football rivalry of England: Hartlepool United versus Darlington F.C..

Doesn’t sound too promising for the average American reader, does it? Or most English readers, for that matter - but bear with me. In describing this battle of the giants of lower league soccer, I hope to convey how the little man in a quaint English pub in the North East of England is just as important to the beauty of sporting rivalry as the thousands who turn out for the likes of Manchester United, the Chicago Bears or the New York Rangers.

Apologies in advance to any serious sports-based socio-cultural analysts. My bias towards my beloved team may come through unintentionally in the upcoming description. Given that I am defined in most of my friends’ minds as a fanatic fan of the blue and white and a general hater of all things black and white, please forgive me for my prejudices. Unless you’re a Darlington supporter, to which I point and laugh at you for your inferiority.

As we stand here in 2007, the current record between the two teams (rightfully) puts the best team on top (oops! I’m being biased already). Since 1922, Hartlepool (or Pools) and Darlington (Darlo) have played a whopping 145 games, with 60 wins going to Hartlepool, 56 to Darlington, and 29 being a draw (not a concept Americans are familiar with). In the League - excluding cup and playoff competition - Pools have played Darlo 134 times - that’s the fourth most regular derby game in the country since soccer records began, placing just after Liverpool vs. Everton, Arsenal vs. Tottenham and Manchester United vs. Manchester City.

The key to their rivalry is very basic – the two teams are only 20 miles apart. Any teams growing with each other are bound to want to outdo each other, and on a (assumingly) cold day in the early 1920s, this competition kicked off, with two 0-0 draws in the days when hooligan wasn’t in the dictionary and you needed a shirt and tie to enter (a trend that seemingly continues well into the late 1960s, according to an archive photo of a Hartlepool game crowd I saw recently).

It isn’t as simple as that, though. The amount of striking similarities in the context of nationwide soccer between the two clubs is phenomenal.

For seasons in the bottom division of the English Football League, Hartlepool have enjoyed 71 of 86, and Darlington 72 - only beaten by ONE team in over 92, Rochdale (with 73!). Hartlepool and Darlington’s average League position is 80th and 81st out of 92, respectively. Four of the eleven players that made the all-time Darlington XI also played for Hartlepool, and Darlington’s first ever player to get 100 goals in a career with them was born and bred in Hartlepool (hardly surprising, really…). You can’t make it up… my beloved Hartlepool literally do have an evil, crappier twin in Darlington.

With neither team ever getting above the third division of soccer in the newly reformed Football League (since 1958) - even though the third is now referred to as League One to make us sound a little better - Pools and Darlo - to the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United - are mere table scraps. To one another, they are the personification of hatred. The kind of hatred that causes the Cleveland Police to circle Victoria Park - Pools’ home - after a game in 2006 with a helicopter, as well as dispatching around 300 policemen on the street between the away end exit and the train station.

Before addressing the present, however, there was one match on Saturday 25th March, 1978 which typifies - perhaps substantiates, in many people’s minds - the animosity between the two teams. Luckily, Hartlepool United’s chief statistician John Phillips of www.inthemadcrowd.co.uk was on hand to gladly describe it:

“I guess the most notorious Pools/Darlo game was at Feethams (Darlington’s home ground) just two days after Pools fullback Dave Wiggett had been killed in a road accident in a car driven by team-mate Bob Newton. A fair number of Darlo fans chanted through the minute's silence before kick-off and the game was a very bad-tempered affair. There was a running battle throughout between Derrick Downing for Pools and Darlo's Lloyd Maitland. Downing was eventually sent off, and Maitland further infuriated the Pools fans by throwing away his black armband. Red cards were pretty rare in those days. It was only Pools' 12th since WW2, and was only the third time in Football League history that a side had won away from home after having a man sent off. A 17-year-old Keith Houchen - who would go on to manage Pools - got the winner.

Billy Horner - Pools’ manager but also a player for Darlington from 1970-74 - pulled no punches, saying that the offending Darlo fans were "a disgrace to their club, their town, and the human race".

You can’t get more of a basis for hatred than that.

Nowadays, things are different. Hartlepool’s Victoria Park - or Church, as I like to call it - only houses 7,691 fans, with just under 1,000 of those reserved for the away supporters. Although the pitch is regularly compared with a fairway at Augusta or St. Andrews - winning countless grounds-keeping awards - it is surrounded by two average stands (one of which has iron bars to lean on and no seats, where I happen to stand) and two pretty dilapidated ones. Sound carries well, and I can hear a goal being scored from my house 1½ miles away in the rare event that I miss a match.

Darlington F.C. owned a regularly flooded stadium called Feethams, which was bulldozed in 2003 to make way for a field. This was after a (genuinely) convicted felon, George Reynolds, bought the team, having amassed a fortune in the kitchen furnishing business. He built them a new stadium housing 25,000 fans, even though Darlington gets a regular attendance of 3,000 or so, even now. Promising them Premiership soccer in five years, his reign came to an end in 2005 after imprisonment for tax evasion, having been arrested in his car with his trunk stashed with £500,000. The club went into administration but was saved by local businessmen and fans alike; I hate Darlington, but not enough to want them to fold.

As much as I may raise eyebrows by making the club sound like textbook Brazilian soccer corruption, I tell you the absolute truth - and this is regularly used as ammunition in songs in Hartlepool games - even when we aren’t playing Darlington.

Songs, might I add, are the backbone of fan involvement and a true base for our rivalry. A good 75 percent of Hartlepool songs are anti-Darlo. They include “We Hate Darlo”; “Shoot the Darlo Scum” (to Que Sera Sera); and, of course, the all-time family favourite “S*** on the B*****ds Below”. Although they sound evil and brooding, they are generally taken in jest, and have mirror versions in the other end (e.g. “Shoot the Poolie Scum”).

In between the singing in this game, an intense fear is found in the atmosphere. Like an atmosfear (Ha ha ha). Quite like a response from a pun as weak as that, the average fan’s demeanor is serious to the point of anger. Any challenge is immediately screamed at, shown a two-fingered salute, or causes a surge of bodies angrily pushing forward. As soon as several fluid passes are strung together, your team is playing the best soccer of their life. The same passes in a previous game would have been gently encouraged, but here it is almost like a D-Day assault. Should the team get within 10 yards of the opponent’s goal, crisis mode ensues. Pray for your ribs if you’re leaning against a bar and a goal goes in; cover your ears if you don’t like obscenities and you’ve just conceded.

The wonderful thing about the rivalry - for me at least - is that I haven’t seen Darlo beat Pools in more than six years. The last game, at their cavernous stadium, ended in a 0-3 win for Hartlepool, including one of the best goals I’ve ever seen (which you can view through my profile). Sadly I couldn’t make it due to a capacity cap on the 25,000 all-seater stadium, in effect making it a 10,000 seater (and making 15,000 seats purely ornamental). Regardless, 3,500 Poolies were bouncing around as they saw the better team triumph.

And what now? Sadly, the rivalry is on hold for another year, at least. Hartlepool were promoted as League Two runners-up, ironically breaking the club’s unbeaten run record against Darlington during the aforementioned game (with the run ending after 21 games). Hartlepool also broke more than seven other records, including most wins without conceding (seven, to tie with the national record) and most consecutive scoring games (27). Darlington missed out on the playoffs and as a result, Pools have to wait for Darlo to join them (as I’m damn sure we won’t get relegated).

As much as I loathe Darlington, I would rather lose in a derby game than be in the league above them. Rivalry is what it’s all about - without it, my team, anyone’s team - would suffer for it.

Actually, I take that back. I never want Pools to lose against Darlo!

(with thanks to John Phillips of www.inthemadcrowd.co.uk and Hartlepool fan contributors from www.pooliebunker.co.uk.)