Hartlepool United's FA Trophy campaign: a welcome break or an unwelcome distraction?

For many Pools fans, their trip to Premier League Crystal Palace in the fourth round of the FA Cup, which took place in February 2022, must feel like a lifetime ago.

On that memorable afternoon, Pools rubbed shoulders with the likes of Marc Guehi, now a well-established England international, Michael Olise, who has since made his debut for France and secured a lucrative move to German giants Bayern Munich, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Conor Gallagher and Eberechi Eze, currently starring for Premier League leaders Arsenal.

Saturday's opponents, who have reached the third round of the Trophy for the first time in their entire history, are set to field a slightly less glamorous set of names, albeit former England international and FA Cup winner David Nugent came out of retirement in October to take on a player-coach role for the Derbyshire side.

It's safe to say that a lot's changed since Pools made the long trip to Selhurst Park, marking the end of a brilliant FA Cup run that saw them come from behind to down Blackpool, then of the Championship, in the third round.

While, as their run to the fourth round of the FA Cup as well as the semi-finals of the Football Trophy in the same season proved to Pools fans, cup competitions have the potential to evoke magic as well as misery.

Unfortunately for Pools supporters, there has been far more of the latter since the 2021/22 campaign.

Indeed, Pools have a particularly poor record in the FA Trophy, having lost their first ever game in the competition to Workington in 2017 and fallen at the first hurdle again last season, going out to fellow National League side Tamworth after missing all three of their penalties in a pretty abject shootout.

Certainly, it's hard to avoid the sense that Saturday's game means far more to Anstey, who are bidding to cause a huge upset and make history all of their own, than it does to Pools, for whom this weekend's clash probably serves more as an unwelcome distraction from their pursuit of a play-off place than anything else.

Of course, new manager Nicky Featherstone, who was appointed permanent Pools boss until the end of the season last week following a successful spell in caretaker charge, has been at pains to stress the importance of this weekend's game, while skipper Tom Parkes said he and his teammates were determined to avoid a repeat of October's humbling FA Cup exit at the hands of Northern Premier League Premier Division side Gainsborough Trinity.

Even so, Saturday is effectively a lose-lose situation for Pools, who are expected to breeze past lower league opposition but run the risk of humiliation if they were to find themselves on the wrong end of a seismic upset.

Featherstone, then, is in an unenviable position.

Having spent well over a decade at Victoria Park, the 37-year-old will be all too aware that time is not something Hartlepool United managers tend to be afforded, especially not during the tumultuous reign of current chairman and owner Raj Singh.

Featherstone, therefore, can ill-afford an embarrassing cup defeat, which would rank as a major blot on his copybook ahead of a looming "review of performance" set to decide his fate and therefore his managerial future at the end of the season.

Equally, the new boss will not want to risk injuries to important players ahead of a potentially decisive run of National League fixtures, with Pools, who are currently two points outside the top seven, set to take on strugglers Braintree, play-off rivals Scunthorpe as well as leaders Rochdale before the end of the year.

So, while it's true that the FA Trophy represents, as Featherstone puts it, one of his side's only two realistic chances of reaching Wembley Stadium - the other, of course, being the National League play-off final - there are probably as many risks as opportunities, particularly in the early rounds.

If Pools, as fans expect, win at the weekend, then it will soon be forgotten, whereas a defeat will live long in the memory as one of the club's worst and most shocking results.

Yet if Pools can progress through the unglamorous opening rounds, then there could be genuine glory to be had - the question for Featherstone, then, is how much is he prepared to risk in pursuit of one of English football's more obscure cup competitions.

Your next Hartlepool United read: Hartlepool United boss discusses Josh Donaldson recall