Presteigne St Andrews FC can unfortunately confirm that our scheduled opening competitive match of the season has been cancelled.
As many of you will know, we were due to open with a home game against Trefonen FC in the first round qualifying of the JD FAW Cup on Saturday, 30 July.
But Trefonen have been in touch with both the FAW and ourselves to inform all parties that they are withdrawing from the Welsh Cup.
The Montgomeryshire club has, by its own admission, had major issues including their previous manager and a sizeable proportion of the squad leaving in the run up to the new season.
They had already taken the tough decision to step down from Tier 4 football and return to Tier 5 in the Montgomeryshire Amateur League and have now decided the FAW Cup tie at Llanandras Park will come too soon for them to assemble a squad.
Huge credit goes to Trefonen for the way in which they have handled this – it would have been easy for them to just inform the FAW who, in turn, would then have informed us.
But Trefonen took the time and trouble to send an email outlining in detail the issues they have been facing and committee members at Presteigne have every sympathy with them as a lot of those issues ring true with us.
Trefonen’s proximity to the England-Wales border means – like ourselves – they run into the issue of endless red tape when it comes to signing a player from just a few miles down the road.
International clearance is required for such signings and, while Trefonen say they are well on the way towards assembling a new squad under their new manager, there were concerns a lot of those clearances would not be through in time for those players to figure in the Welsh Cup tie.
As a club, while we are disappointed the tie will not go ahead, we are very grateful to Trefonen FC’s officials for making the call as it means we don’t end up with too many unwanted issues such as wasting food and staffing a game that then didn’t happen.
Our best wishes to Trefonen FC for the remainder of the season and, who knows, they might yet make to Llanandras Park later in the campaign.
After all, the Mid Wales League (South) and Montgomeryshire Amateur League are to run a combined cup competition so, depending on the draw, the Miners might yet be heading our way.
The assumption is, as a result of this decision, Presteigne St Andrews FC will receive a bye into the next round.