Bradford City defender expresses delight at winning return for Hartlepool United

Hendrie signed for Hartlepool on the EFL’s transfer deadline day after a deal was struck with Bradford City to bring the 29-year-old back to the Suit Direct Stadium on a season-long loan.

Hendrie has already had two spells with the club, first on loan from Burnley in 2015 before returning under Dave Challinor following the club's promotion back to the Football League.

After Challinor’s exit, Hendrie struggled for game time which led to him returning to another of his former clubs in Bradford in January last year.

But after the season-ending injury to Dan Dodds, Hendrie was brought back by John Askey and made his third debut for the club in the win over Wealdstone with the defender expressing his delight at being back at Pools.

"I’m really glad to be back, hopefully this time it can be a little bit longer and I can really play my part,” he said.

"I just wanted to take it in my stride and there’s no better way to do that than being thrown straight into the team.

"I loved being back out there,” he added.

“I’ve not had a lot of football over the last year so I’m only going to get better, but first and foremost I just wanted to get a solid performance in and hopefully that can be a building block going forward.”

Hendrie was making his National League debut against Wealdstone and while the hope will be he will only have to compete at this level for the remainder of this season, the defender admits he was impressed by the standard of the away side.

"I’ve never played in this league before and they really surprised me,” he said.

"I thought they played really well to be honest, I really liked the way they played. We could have managed it a little bit better and probably should have killed it off earlier than we did, but it’s quite a new team and we’ll get better.

"The most important thing is the three points. I’ll take that all day rather than playing unbelievably well and losing.”