Dover boss Andy Hessenthaler has urged the National League to make their minds up sooner rather than later.

Clubs across all three divisions have been sent voting forms on whether to continue the season or declare it null and void on the basis of future government funding coming in the forms of loans rather than grants.

Hessenthaler wants to be put out of his misery. Dover had enough money to get through January but another month without additional financial assistance could be a step too far.

“It can’t go on for much longer,” said Hessenthaler. “We can play this week but I don’t know if there’s much money left after that. There has to be a decision.

“We’ve gone into February and the chairman has got a couple of weeks in terms of finances before he needs the money to come through to start paying the wages again.

“The money that we’ve got previously has been used so for me it has to be sorted out this week.

“They are going to upset someone but we need to make a decision, it needs to be sorted. Either we continue our league or it’s not continuing and clubs can start preparing for next season.”

Dover will benefit from a null and void verdict as they currently sit second-bottom in the National League and are eight points adrift of safety.

But Hessenthaler would rather he kept his team in non-league’s top flight on merit.

“As a football manager I want to carry on, I’m desperate to carry on – even with the position we are in,” added the 55-year-old.

“It’s a great challenge to get out of it and turn our season around but it might not be right for the football club to carry on playing financially. That’s the same for every club, it’s got to be right for everyone to play on.

“We were disappointed last year that the season finished when it did. We had eight games to go and were four points off the play-offs – who knows if we could have got in the mix by the end of the season?

“We want to have an opportunity to stay up on merit, we did it before, but it’s going to come down to finances. If we can sort that out, we might be able to bring a couple of players in as well and boost the squad.”

Many clubs have voiced their concerns over taking on loans and Hessenthaler does not expect a last-ditch plea for grants – with the National League starting a petition to ask DCMS to reconsider their stance - to be successful.

“If it was grants then we’d have got it by now,” he added. “I think it’s gone on too long. Every manager is in the same boat, we don’t know and we’re all waiting for that final decision.

“The first thing I did after training on Monday was to ring the chairman to find out what was happening and he didn’t have any news for me.”

Despite the uncertainty, Dover were back on the training ground this week after the 3-1 defeat at Yeovil.

Dover looked on course for three points thanks to Ade Azeez’s early goal but Hessenthaler was fuming after they conceded right on half-time, a goal that swung the game in favour of the home side.

e went through the game again at the start of the week and they were not even good goals to concede,” said the Whites manager. “The time we conceded the first one was such a bad time as it gave them a lift.

“If we’d gone into the second half at 1-0, the longer it then goes on they’d be frustrated and force things and we’d make it hard for them and can hit them on the counter attack.

“We’ve looked at our set-up for all three goals and it’s not good. We’ve talked about it, we’ve worked on it and we’re still making the same mistakes and we can’t keep doing that.

“We should have done better on the first goal, the ball came in too easily and the players know that. We’re going to look at it all on Tuesday and then we’ll put it to bed and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Hessenthaler backed on-loan keeper Ollie Webber, who held his hands up after the defeat at Yeovil.

The Crystal Palace youngster was at fault for Yeovil’s second goal, and thought he could have done more on the equaliser as well.

“To concede just before half-time is criminal and it was avoidable,” added Hessenthaler.

“It’s a team mistake and young Ollie could have done better but he slipped as he dived. The second goal he held his hands up but the problem is that it’s happening too many times for us. We’ve got to stop it.

“He made a mistake but he will learn from it. I’ve got every confidence in the lad that he will be fine. He has to put it behind him and as a group we’ve got to defend better as well.”

It was the first time since the end of October that Dover have played three times in a week.

It was a schedule that took its toll, with it coming so quickly on the back of a period of long inactivity.

“It took its toll on a few players plus we’d been on the bus for four and a half hours,” reflected Hessenthaler.

“I thought a few of them looked tired and off their game on Saturday.

“We’re not playing on Tuesday so we can recover this week and go again. We’ve got two games on our pitch and it’s not going to get any drier any time soon.

“We’re used to it. I felt that we almost played as if we were on our pitch on Saturday at Yeovil and we didn’t want to relax on the ball and we wanted to get rid of it quickly.

“We’ve got good footballers and it’s hard for people like Jack Munns, who was ill at the weekend, to get into the team with his physicality and having to play in that mud.”

Dover host Hartlepool on Saturday and then Maidenhead on Tuesday night in the National League.

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