League Season Curtailed

Rugby Town are hopeful of seeing some football this Spring, despite the recent confirmation from the United Counties League that their Premier Division campaign had been curtailed.

Whilst Town Director Neil Melvin appeared to rule out the club competing in a potential supplementary cup competition which was mooted by the league following the announcement that organised team sports could restart from the end of this month, he did express hope that there could be some meaningful activity in the coming weeks.

The deadline for UCL member clubs to submit their views on the competition comes on March 12th, with Melvin commenting: "We would not rule out there being some form of football before the summer, but we don't necessarily feel what has been proposed by the league is the best option for us as things stand.

"There are still a lot of unknowns at the moment with regards to restart dates and whether spectators would be allowed to even attend games, and we also have to consider the impact of potentially playing on until the end of May would have on the pitch for next season.

"We generally like to get working on the surface as early as we can in May so that we can be ready for the pre-season schedule in July.

"Once there is more clarity in terms of how restrictions are going to be eased, we will sit down with Carl (Adams) and see what works best for the players and his plans for them, but hopefully this will include some proper match action."

Rugby last played at Butlin Road in a practice game against FC Stratford on December 21st ahead of what was supposed to be restart of the UCL after Christmas.

However the various local and national restrictions that followed limited that competitive restart to just one match - the Boxing Day victory at Northampton Chenecks - and the term was ultimately ended with Valley sat in sixth place having completed just eleven league fixtures.

Melvin agreed with the decision from the FA Alliance and Leagues Committee to call time on the campaign.

He said: "It was the option that we voted for in the circulated questionnaire and it seemed the only viable solution considering how few games had been played.

"It appears that the FA are still keen to pursue the possibility of carrying out their restructuring activities at our level, but we will have to wait and see how they intend doing this in the circumstances.

"It seems unlikely that they would opt to use a points per game ratio based on the 2020/21 standings due to the lack of matches completed, and I wouldn't have thought they could combine them with the 2019/20 records as these were officially declared null and void."

Town's 2020/21 points per game statistics were the 4th best in the division (behind Anstey, Shepshed and Quorn), having finished in 3rd place (again behind Shepshed and Quorn) in both league standings and points per game ratio in 2019/20.