'We’ve got to find the spirit to do it again' - Hartlepool United midfielder Tom Crawford's message ahead of National League return

Relegation is never nice, for any club, but for Crawford, the 2022-23 campaign was one of particular struggle with a major injury setback accompanying that relegation.

The midfielder arrived back at the club last summer with a niggling injury which had plagued him throughout the final weeks of the 2021-22 campaign as Pools’ solid first season back in the Football League drifted away with a nine-game winless run to end the season.

That run led to a change of management over the summer and with that came a series of changes which, to players such as Crawford – who had been through the highs of promotion from the National League – was difficult to adjust to.

As Hartlepool’s squad was dismantled by Paul Hartley, Crawford looked on as team-mates, including close friend Neill Byrne, cleared out their lockers at Maiden Castle on a regular basis as they were moved on to other clubs.

By the time Hartlepool jetted out to Portugal for a warm weather pre-season training camp in late June, numbers were low enough for Crawford to be handed a starting spot as striker against Hibernian.

“I don’t think anything was really structured at the start,” Crawford explained to The Mail when reflecting on the previous 12 months.

“At one stage it was like every other week someone was just out of the door or packing their bags and saying ‘right, I’m going lads.’

“It’s easy to say if we’d have kept that team together we’d have progressed, but I do think if we’d have kept a few of those lads we would have probably been in a better position.

“I think every successful team who gets in the play-offs or who gets promoted have got a steady structure on how they do things. That’s needed in every single aspect of a football club.

“If there’s a structure in place then the football takes care of itself so, hopefully, we can regroup, bring a few good bodies in and have a right go next year.”

And for Crawford, having a “right go next year” will mean more than Hartlepool, hopefully, being able to enjoy a lot more wins throughout the season.

It will mean being able to get out on the pitch and contributing after missing a large chunk of the campaign through injury.

Having been unable to shake off his injury during pre-season, Crawford carried on until October before he took the decision to have a scan on a persistent ankle problem.

It left the 24-year-old with a decision to make – play on and hope things don’t get worse or take an operation and miss the majority of the season.

“I thought it was something that would just go away and obviously it didn’t and then it started to become something in the back of my head where I was going into every game with a problem in my ankle,” said Crawford.

“I just asked the question to the physio saying ‘there’s something not right here.’ I think it was Michael [Harding] at the time and he said we can get it scanned and get it checked up for you to put your mind at ease and if there’s a problem, we’ll see it. So that’s what we did and the problem came up.

“Then it was a decision on my end and whether I wanted to do it or not.

“So I just bit the bullet and thought I’m of an age where I can get an operation and come back from it.

“It’s a weird one. I never really get injured so it was a really tough one mentally because I’ve never been in that situation before where you’re sat at home not being able to do anything.

“It’s been really, really bad in terms of the time I’ve spent out but it’s something that needed doing.”

Crawford is one of just three contracted players who were part of Hartlepool’s promotion success in 2021 when the club were last in the National League, with Nicky Featherstone still to agree a new deal.

In that respect, he is one of few who knows what it takes to get out of the division with the club.

But although Crawford’s focus is on a successful, healthy, 2023-24 campaign, the pain of relegation is something the midfielder admits may not leave him.

“It’s devastating,” Crawford told The Mail.

“I feel for all the boys, but the lads who felt it when we went up, and the elation and emotion of it, it just hits home a bit more.

“When I saw the likes of Fergie in tears it’s just really bad. We’ve just got to regroup and go again.

“We got our just deserts and we’ve been relegated from the league. Next year we can rectify that by being good enough and getting into that top half, getting into those play-offs, promotion, whatever you want to look at, and have a right go.

“We’ve been promoted out of that league before so we’ve got to look at that and think we can do it again.

“The spirit obviously comes from the fans. They’ve been immense when it’s been tough for them.

“They’ve been there constantly in their numbers and at away games and cheering us when, maybe, we didn’t deserve cheering.

“We all had the big celebrations at Bristol, and we all know how good it was and how good it felt, so we’ve got to find the spirit to do it again.”