Steven Istead

Steven Istead was picked up by Pools manager Chris Turner having been released by Newcastle United as a teenager. Turner liked enough of what he saw to put Istead into the first team squad and, at 16 years 189 days, he came on as substitute for Darrell Clarke in a game against Bristol Rovers in 2002. This made him the youngest player in Hartlepool United history, a record that John McGovern had held for over 35 years. Istead himself would hold the record for less than 12 months before David Foley pushed him into second place on the list.

A quick right winger, Istead initially endeared himself to the terraces with his eagerness to run at defenders, and a headed goal in Pools`s League Cup victory at Sheffield Wednesday in 2003 helped his cause further. At the end of his second season at the club he was voted Young Player of the Season by the Pools supporters. Yet more than three years into his Pools career he remained a fringe player and as the 2004/05 ended he had made just one league start for the club despite more than 50 appearances from the substitutes` bench. Istead signed his first professional contract in the summer of 2005 and made infrequent appearances for the first team throughout the following season, scoring a late winner at Blackpool. He was released in May 2006, shortly after the club were relegated to League Two.