CALLUM Cooke admits he could never have expected the nightmare season Hartlepool United have endured when he joined the club last summer.

Peterlee-born Cooke returned to the North-East from Bradford City hoping to help Pools build on a solid first season back in the Football League.

But instead it's been a disastrous campaign for Hartlepool who suffered relegation to the National League, which led to chairman Raj Singh putting the club up for sale.

Cooke admits he's been left "absolutely drained" and needs to switch off, but as things stand he expects to still be a Hartlepool player when pre-season gets underway.

"I'm absolutely devastated with how the season has ended," Cooke told BBC Tees.

"No player wants a relegation on their CV. Ultimately we gave ourselves too much to do. You can ask loads of questions and loads of different theories as to what happened in that game against Crawley, but we got beat and that sealed our fate."

Former Middlesbrough youngster Cooke was delighted to sign for Pools last summer, but the move hasn't gone to plan.

He said: "I was obviously at Bradford and we played Hartlepool twice last season. When we played them at Valley Parade, I thought they were a good team.

"When I came in the summer it ticked all the boxes for me. I would never have come if I thought I'd be in this situation.

"I want to win and be at the top end of the league, not fighting at the bottom. I never in my wildest dreams thought we'd be in this position, but this is the way it's gone.

"I feel mentally and physically absolutely drained. I've been fighting injuries. I need to switch off for a month to let myself recover, then we need to pick ourselves up and go again."

As things stand John Askey looks set to continue as boss, despite the uncertainty surrounding Hartlepool's ownership, and unless he's told otherwise, Cooke says he'll be going nowhere.

He said: "The manager is in place for next season, which is great news for the football club. He's given the club an identity on the pitch.

"I'm a Hartlepool United player, I'll be there on July 3 (for the start of pre-season). That's all I can say, I'm contracted so at the minute I'll be going nowhere.

"We've got a good group. We've had it from the start, but for whatever reason it didn't click before the manager came in.

"We need to rest and rebuild and have a good pre-season."