Challinor hoping to rearrange Halifax game

Dave Challinor was far from surprised to see Hartlepool Un i t e d ’s N at i o n a l L e a g u e match at Halifax Town postponed.

The game at The Shay was called off on Saturday morning due to a frozen pitch and continued freezing temperatures throughout the day in West Yorkshire.

While the Hartlepool manager was disappointed not to keep his side's positive run of form going into 2021 straight away, he had no complaints about the decision itself.

“It was always going to be difficult,” he said.

"Looking at the forecast in Halifax where it was below freezing overnight and then the temperature wasn’t going to rise above one of two degrees during the day which doesn’t really give the pitch a chance to thaw out.

"We h a d a n i n k l i n g i t would be off but we trained yesterday and prepared as normal and we were obviously disappointed to find out it was off on Saturday morning.”

Now a new date for the fixture must be agreed between the clubs with Pools currently having just three matches scheduled in January. And with both Pools and Halifax having the next three Tuesday nights free, it is looking likely that the match will be rearranged for one of those dates.

“We’re hoping to play the game as quickly as possible,” Challinor admitted.

“From our perspective, we wanted to play [on Saturday] and had no reason to doubt why Halifax wouldn’t want to.

"J a n u a r y i s a p r e t t y blank month for us in terms o f g a m e s , I w o u l d p l ay i t this Tuesday if it’s an option but I think hopefully we can play it by the following Tuesday on the 12th.”

Hartlepool manager Dave Challinor.