Can Hartlepool United salvage some pride from disappointing season with win over rivals York?

At the moment, the best time to be a Pools fan tends to be in the summer, that period between the end of the last season and the beginning of the new one when, in the minds of supporters at least, just about anything is possible. So it has proved this season for Pools, who came into the campaign full of cautious optimism but soon found their dreams, hopes and expectations dashed.

Pools, like Saturday's opponents York, are a Football League club languishing in the doldrums. Concerningly for Pools fans, the two teams seem to be heading in opposite directions. While the Minstermen are hot on the heels of league leaders Barnet, mid-table Pools already have little left to play for other than pride.

And yet it all started so well - or did it? It's rarely boring following Pools, and the club sprung a real surprise a week after the end of the 2023/24 season when they replaced popular manager Kevin Phillips, the first man since Dave Challinor to leave with a better than 40 per cent win record, with the straight-talking Darren Sarll. It was a strange decision that turned out to be a calamitous one, but with no football to bring them down fans were hopeful that the sudden change might prove to be a productive one.

Sarll made a lot of the right noises in the summer and adopted a refreshingly focused approach to recruitment, signing players with links to the North East and reputations for robustness and reliability. Pools secured the services of Adam Campbell, who won promotion to League One with Crawley and turned down a new deal to remain in West Sussex, Jack Hunter, who finished in the play-offs with Halifax, Nathan Sheron, a regular in a promotion-chasing Oldham side, and Luke Charman, who ran Pools ragged while playing for Fylde. For his part, Sarll had led both Yeovil and Woking to the play-offs and was engaging, bullish and confident about his new side's chances whenever he spoke to the media. What could possibly go wrong? Well, as it turned out, pretty much everything.

Pools took seven points from their first three matches but it didn't take long before serious cracks started to appear. Sarll had vowed to make Pools more physical, competitive and combative but skipper Luke Waterfall took his instructions a little too literally and was sent off twice in his first four appearances, while a needless Jack Hunter red card cost his side dearly in a painful defeat at Woking, one of Sarll's former sides, at the end of August. Sarll had promised to make Pools better at the back, but his side failed to score in almost seven hours of football at the Prestige Group Stadium. Sarll's direct approach was not designed to get the best of technical players like Adam Campbell and Joe Grey, while Mani Dieseruvwe, who scored 25 goals in the previous campaign, was cutting an increasingly frustrated figure up front. It wasn't long before Pools were sliding down the table.

Sarll didn't help himself. The outspoken former Stevenage boss had the unusual habit of referring to himself in the third person, often as "uncle Darren", and brandished supporters as "clever Dicks" following a defeat to Forest Green Rovers, the fourth game in a row that Pools had lost without scoring. It was clear that the under-pressure boss was grappling around in the dark for a solution as he experimented with various formations, including 3-5-2 and a 4-4-2 with a diamond midfield, while he dropped talismanic pair Mani Dieseruvwe and Joe Grey. Supporters might have been prepared to forgive some of his indiscretions, but the poor results and dire football created what felt like an unbridgeable chasm between Sarll and the fanbase. He was sacked after just 15 games in charge, with Pools closer to the National League's bottom four than the top seven.

Veteran Lennie Lawrence, who became the third oldest active manager in the world when he was appointed on a permanent basis in November following an impressive spell as caretaker, steadied the ship before handing the reins to the energetic, charismatic and ambitious Anthony Limbrick earlier this month. Remarkably, the Australian already finds himself under a bit of pressure after just five games in charge. Having produced an impressive performance to beat in-form Sutton in his first game at the helm, Pools have gone four matches without a win and failed to make the most of a promising run of three home games in the space of seven days. Supporters, still just about holding on to the last vestiges of optimism, had hoped their side would use a favourable run of fixtures to launch their assault on the play-off places. Instead, draws against Tamworth and relegation-threatened Maidenhead and a defeat to Altrincham during which Tom Crawford made Pools regret their surprising decision to release him in April, all but ended their fading play-off hopes. Pools were outfought in Hampshire last weekend as Josh Barrett's 94th minute winner condemned them to a second successive defeat and left fans longing for the summer when their perennially underachieving football team will no longer have the power to ruin their weekends.

Yet Pools cannot afford to let this season fizzle out. It has been another bizarre campaign, with three more managers taking the total number of permanent appointments in the last decade to 16. Who could forget the training ground bust-up that leaked online, the continual concern that Pools will lose both Mani Dieseruvwe and Joe Grey this summer, more frustration with the machinations of enigmatic owner Raj Singh and the striking deterioration of the Prestige Group Stadium pitch. Even so, if Pools are to have any hope of being successful next season, then they need to ensure they have a respectable end to the current campaign.

Anthony Limbrick, whose contract extends beyond the summer, will need to convince both the board and the fanbase that he is the right man to lead the club in the long term, while the likes of David Ferguson, Luke Waterfall and Gary Madine are all hoping to do enough to earn new deals. A remarkable 35 different managerial appointments, including caretakers, over the last 17 seasons has yielded one promotion, two relegations and just three top half finishes, two of which were unremarkable 12th placed efforts. Pools are crying out for some stability in the dugout, but Limbrick knows he will have to earn the right to maintain his place in the hostseat next term.

There are some striking similarities between Pools and Saturday's opponents York, even if the two clubs have experienced remarkably different campaigns. Both are former Football League sides who have found it difficult to live up to former glories in recent years. Since relegation in 2004, ending 75 years of uninterrupted membership of the Football League, the Minstermen have spent 11 of the last 20 seasons in the Conference or National League and another five miserable campaigns in the National League North. Although the National League's '3UP' campaign, calling for a third promotion place from the fifth division, is gathering momentum, Pools know all too well how difficult it is to get back into the Football League.

Having narrowly avoided relegation last term, York set about on a complete overhaul of their squad in the summer. Former Worthing manager Adam Hinshelwood, who was appointed York boss in February last year, returned to West Sussex to raid his old club of some of their prize assets. Ollie Pearce, who is the division's top scorer this season with 21 goals in 33 games, as well as Joe Felix, one of the league's outstanding performers this term, linked up with their old boss in North Yorkshire while highly rated goalkeeper Harrison Male, who spent two impressive campaigns on the south coast, reunited with Hinshelwood after excelling at Dorking Wanderers. The Minstermen also lured Tyrese Sinclair, one of Rochdale's star performers last season, to the York Community Stadium while Hinshelwood's side splashed out a rumoured £350,000 - some estimates suggest the fee was as high as £420,000 - to sign forward Josh Stones, who scored twice against Pools for Oldham last season, in January.

Pools fans would be forgiven for casting a few jealous glances at their well-resourced rivals along the A19. York moved into a new stadium in 2021 and can now call on the considerable financial resources of mother-and-son ownership duo Julie-Anne and Matthew Uggla. While not perfect - the pair made plenty of mistakes last season, while Matt has landed himself in hot water on numerous occasions thanks to his ranting on social media - it's starting to feel like a matter of time before the Minstermen return to the Football League.

The financial chasm between the two sides makes it very difficult to compete with their rivals over a 46-game season, and Pools were outclassed in a thumping 5-3 defeat in the reverse fixture in November. However, with York hot on the heels of league leaders Barnet and well aware that they cannot afford too many more slip-ups if they're to close the six point gap to the Bees, the Minstermen have been showing one or two signs of nerves of late. York have dropped points in four of their last nine league games and needed goals in the 94th and 96th minutes to edge past relegation-threatened Maidenhead in midweek. While a miserable run of one win in their last nine matches has left Pools with nothing left to play for other than pride, Limbrick might be hoping his side can perform with more freedom now their slim play-off hopes are all but extinguished.

Although York have won an impressive 13 of their 17 home games this season, their record on the road is far more mixed. The Minstermen have won seven, drawn five and lost four on their travels this term, while Pools know the Prestige Group Stadium can be a very difficult place for visiting sides to come if the home team can give their fans something to shout about. If Pools can start well, then Saturday's game could become very tough for the title-chasers.

From a Pools perspective, Saturday's clash is in effect a one-off game. While York will feel they cannot afford to lose if they're to keep their title hopes alive, Pools will want to end the season strongly if they're to build any sort of momentum for the 2025/26 campaign. It certainly feels like a bigger game for York than it does for Pools, but there is a lot riding on this weekend's clash for Limbrick as well as a number of the current squad, particularly those who are out of contract in the summer. Next season will surely be better, won't it?