Exclusive: Dave Challinor explains why Hartlepool United haven't entered this season's Durham Challenge Cup competition

After being knocked out of the FA Cup at Salford City on Saturday, Pools now have just the National League and FA Trophy to worry about this season due to their withdrawal from the regional FA competition.

Pools were at the centre of some controversy with the Durham FA last season as they withdrew from the 2019-20 tournament at the quarter-final stage after their request to move their scheduled fixture against Sunderland was rejected.

FA rules state County Cup competitions take priority over league matches, but this season, clubs have been given an option whether to enter the competition or not.

And with Pools operating with a small squad and no official youth set-up, Challinor felt it was a sensible decision not to enter.

"This season, we’ve got no development squad or official youth team so it was difficult to enter the competition,” he told The Mail.

“We would have been playing our college youth team which is full of first-year players from grassroots football.

"Chucking them in against a Northern League side wouldn’t have been fair to them at all to play against experienced men’s teams.

"Regardless of the competition, we just thought it was best for us with all the uncertainty and our infrastructure to not be involved in it and it’s the first year where we’ve had a choice.

"Normally you’d have to enter it and we thought it was the best choice for us given the size of our first-team squad and lack of a youth set-up.”

Reflecting on last season’s controversy, Challinor added: “We were put in a situation where we would have had to play four games over a week which at the back end of the season was too much of a gamble when we were challenging for the play-offs.

"We couldn’t let a cup competition like the Durham Challenge Cup to impact our league competition in that way.

"I don’t think it was fair that the Durham FA were demanding that we play a game that potentially puts us at risk in the National League when at the time we had a good chance of getting in the play-offs.”

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