Joe Ramage: John Askey's Hartlepool United stay is key in non-league revival mission

Hartlepool United will return to the National League next season on the back of a truly wretched season littered with mistake after mistake, all tinged with a hint of end of season uncertainty.

Even by Hartlepool’s standards, the final few weeks of the campaign have been quite striking.

Their season-defining defeat to Crawley was accompanied by calls for chairman Raj Singh to leave, something he then duly suggests he will do as he confirmed the club would be put up for sale.

Hartlepool would finish their home campaign with a rare win over Barrow, offering them a few solitary minutes of hope while we all waited to see if Walsall could bail them out and prolong this exhausting mess of a season for another week.

They couldn’t.

But things weren't quite finished there as John Askey took aim at a number of players in his squad, labelling them as 'selfish individuals' as the layers started to peel back on Hartlepool’s issues.

You could write an entire book on the wrongdoings of this season, not that many would be interested in buying it.

But where the ownership and decision to sell is something which will ramble on in the background for the foreseeable future, it is Askey’s comments on his squad where some of the immediate focus can go.

Askey has been rather unflappable throughout his time with Hartlepool and yet, with relegation confirmed, we saw a glimpse of what lies beneath the exterior.

It was an emotion which has been simmering underneath for a number of weeks as he called out a number of players for their attitude.

Those players, you suspect, will move on.

“They’re not the type of people we need in this football club and they’re not the type of people I want to work with,” Askey confessed.

It almost feels as though Askey has been trying to put out year-long fires but remains only equipped with further fuel.

Crucially, however, Askey seems set to stay.

If there are any wins to be had with Hartlepool’s demise it is that they appear to have stumbled upon a manager who seems to have been universally given the green light by supporters and those inside the club when it comes to picking up the pieces of this season and trying to put them back together again in the National League.

Askey, himself, is, perhaps, taking a risk.

His stock will remain high enough from this end of season attempt with Hartlepool to maybe entice clubs elsewhere, in less of a free fall and less riddled with issues.

And yet he has taken the leap of faith and done so early enough whereby Hartlepool may just have a chance.

As with every summer, recruitment will be massive. But perhaps even more so for Hartlepool this time around as they will invariably have to rip things up and start all over again.

Amongst all of the chaos and fires around him, however, Askey represents something of a cool head the club will need if they are to ride out this sustained period of turbulence.

In Askey they trust. In Askey they need.