No need to assign the pop operation to anything since you want to throw it away. Just:

pop(@header_for_table1);

EDIT:

To clarify, pop will alter the array you are using it on by removing the last element. It returns the last element that is removed, not all the remaining elements excluding the last element removed. So the code you showed would create a new array with just one element, the last element of the original array you wanted to discard. That's not what you want.