Squires Gate: Scrapping the season is the fairest decision

NWCFL chairman Paul Lawler has written to the FA’s league’s committee calling for a rethink, while more than 100 clubs across the country have signed an open letter opposing the ruling.

Maguire (right), whose club sat ninth in the premier division and free of any promotion or relegation issues, understands why the decision has proved divisive.

He told Te Gazette: “A lot of it is self-interest, I think. Clubs will push for one thing or another and I don’t think they’re bothered about the best interests of football – they’re more bothered about their individual club.

“You can understand that. But as far as we’re concerned, we’re in mid-table, so we’ve got nothing at stake either way. We’re just disappointed that we’re not playing football.

“We’ll let the politicians decide the best thing to do. We’re hoping to be back playing on August 1 if everything has settled down by then.

“You do feel sorry for certain sides, like Vauxhall Motors, who had already got automatic promotion (from first division south). They celebrated promotion and now they’re not up.

“You also feel sorry for 1874 Northwich in our league. I’m pretty sure they would have gone up (eight points clear at the top with a game in hand).

“Then you have Bootle, Rylands and Longdridge – which two of those three would have made it?

“There was talk of deciding it on points-per-game but that isn’t fair if you haven’t all played the same teams. We still had to play Longridge twice, for example, so it wouldn’t be a level playing field.”

Whatever decision had been taken over how to end the season, Maguire says there would have been winners and losers.

And so he feels calling the whole thing off is probably the fairest solution.

He added: “How would you decide who goes up and who goes down? In any scenario there are winners and losers, so it’s a matter of the powers- that-be making a decision. Everybody won’t be happy but this decision is probably the least unfavourable.

“I don’t think anyone can say that any way is the right way of doing this. It’s just about trying to find the fairest way.

“I don’t think our league are particularly happy with it because they wanted to carry on, finish this season in July or August and delay next season.

“Will some clubs fold because of this now? We don’t know the impact of this yet but it could well be the death of some clubs unfortunately.

“The league have been updating us on a regular basis. Even when there was nothing to report they’d be in touch. They say they are waiting to hear from the FA after sending their letter.

“The league have kept us in the loop throughout the process.”