Dave Challinor gives insight on life behind-the-scenes at Victoria Park and has this message for his Hartlepool United players

Pools, like many clubs at National League level, have seen major changes behind-the-scenes this year with restructuring and redundancies, with several well-known and long-serving members of staff departing the club in recent months.

Clubs are also facing increasing financial pressures from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic with matches being played behind-closed-doors and the huge drop in income from commercial and hospitality revenues, though the recent National Lottery funding boost has certainly been welcomed by Pools.

Challinor insists his focus – and that of his players and coaching staff – has to be on what they can impact and control, results on the pitch, though he has given an insight into life behind the scenes at Victoria Park.

Challinor, speaking on the Non League Show, said: “The club has had a League One infrastructure off the pitch for the past few years, whether the situation at the moment has brought it on or whether the chairman felt things had to change, a lot of staff have moved on and we very much are bare bones.

"It’s a blank canvas and it’s a case of getting the right staff in the right places to be able to function because we still harbour ambitions of getting this club back to where it was before and the infrastructure has to be right because otherwise things get missed and that can result in something that then impacts things on the pitch.

"We’ve got a really good management team and the players have really bought into what we want to do so the more we can stay away from the ground and the politics of the off field stuff and concentrate on what we can control and just keep working hard and trying to improve.

"The things off the pitch will take care of themselves, there’s the right people in the right positions now and they’ve got to take the club forward in that way and hopefully the two things will run together and we’ll have success.”

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