Hartlepool United manager Dave Challinor ‘hopeful’ season will continue ahead of National League vote on Monday

Following a failure to secure grant funding from the DCMS, all 66 National League clubs are expected to vote on the status of the current campaign on Monday.

The details of the vote are yet to be disclosed to clubs but Challinor believes there is growing optimism that the season will continue.

"If you’d have asked me 24, 48 hours ago I would have been pretty concerned and more towards the camp of I don’t see how a positive ending could transpire,” he said.

“But with the way things are set, maybe our league is a little bit different. 14 out of 22 clubs in the National League North have said they don’t want to continue but that’s not the case in our division.

"As a collective, it’s whether you judge it as three separate leagues or one whole group.”

Pools are one of several National League clubs in favour of the season continuing and the situation is likely to become more clear after Saturday’s National League fixtures have taken place.

“We’re in the dark as much as anybody else,” Challinor admitted.

“There’s lots of things flying about at the moment ad our criticism would be that things tend to be in the public domain before they get to clubs.

"The best way for us to stay up to date and get information is through looking at Twitter accounts. That is disappointing but I’m more hopeful based on what I’ve read and what I’ve seen, certainly from our league’s perspective.

"A lot will become more clear in the next 24 to 48 hours when things are decided by a vote. As it stands, we have no idea what that vote will entail or what the options will be or what the strength of each club’s vote will be or whether it will go on a league by league basis.

"There are still lots of unanswered questions and we can’t spend too much energy worrying about something we can’t control.

"We’ve just got to get on with it and see where things lie day to day.”

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