The chairman of St Martins Village FC has confirmed the team has pulled out of the Shropshire Premier League over moves to re-start the team in Welsh football.

Steve McGowan, from St Martins Village, said the decision was taken at an emergency meeting held by the club on Sunday night, just 24 hours after their north Shropshire derby loss to Gobowen Celtic.

Mr McGowan believes the impact of losing players to Welsh football, allied to the North East Wales Football League's (NEWFL) geographical location to St Martins, meant it was the right decision to switch from Shropshire to Wales.

But he says the club were blocked by the English Football Association from making the move, stating it would have had a negative impact on the league they are already in.

"We have had no choice but to close St. Martins Village Football Club down," he said.

"For a multitude of reasons that has effected the club since the beginning of the season, we applied to the FA to move into Welsh football as we are so close to the border.

"It was to try to keep a large majority of our squad from leaving to play in Wales, as it was costly to travel to our fixtures in Shropshire, by crossing into the NEWFL we could cut travelling by half and travelling times for players away from their families.

"This was rejected by the English FA with the reason being it would have a massive impact on the Shropshire Premier League.

"We registered our club back with Shropshire and, with grassroots football struggling for players in our area, we carried on with a very thin squad of players which seemed to be able to take or leave it.

"None of the new young generation of players coming into grassroots football.

"As the season went on we were finding it difficult to attract young players as in our area we have a quite few other clubs dotted around us.

"I called an emergency meeting last night to discuss the future of the club.

"Players were invited but not one player showed up to ask to try to save the club.

"So our committee voted to close the doors and withdraw from the league as St. Martins Village Football Club as of 7pm on Sunday night."

The Villagers were in ninth place before their resignation and were in their second season in the Premier Division after winning promotion in 2018 courtesy of a title win. Last year they reached the Division's cup final.