MORDA United have set their sights firmly climbing the English non league football pyramid.

The Weston Road club was reformed at the start of the season following three years of their being no club in a village synonymous with its football club.

Having previously targeted progress in the Welsh system, only to be frustrated by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) cross border rulings, the Yellows have now set out their stall in England.

“It is going to be one step at a time,”chairman Matt Williams told freelance journalist Jonny Drury. “We want to re-establish Morda as the number one club for the people of Oswestry to play for. We have big ambitions and we want people to come back and play for the club."

Morda were among the top clubs in the area during the 70s and 80s and Williams hoped the current club would also enjoy similar success.

Williams said: “We’ve got an ambitious team behind the scenes, we’ve got a management team together and we’ve got people who want to push the club on.”

The North West Counties League - currently the home of Shropshire rivals St Martins and Ellesmere Rangers - is the target.

“We want success in Shropshire and that is what we have to do first, we have got to become stable and have a good structure to the club," said Williams.

“I am aware you need that first before moving to a higher level, and we don’t want to try and move too fast. “Once you get the structure, the facilities and the team right then that is enough to progress and challenge in a higher league.”

The committee has been launched with a handful of people and Williams, who was formerly part of the now defunct FC Oswestry Town knows all too well how difficult it is to run a club at this level.

“I was involved at Oswestry so I know how tough it is to get people involved and for them to have the time,” said Williams. “When I heard Morda had re-formed I wanted to get involved, and we now have a proper committee.

“I think the last 12 months and what is going on has shown people want to watch football and local football.

“If you watch a big club you don’t have that affiliation with the club as much as you do, and people want to be part of something.”

Williams was part of a team of volunteers who worked tirelessly to get FC Oswestry Town into the North West Counties League, and they were challenging up the top when the league was curtailed last season.

Following that it was no longer financially viable to continue with the club and with no end to the pandemic in sight, the club folded.

Part of Williams’ eagerness to get involved with Morda is the fact that his fire for local football is still burning brightly following the collapse of FC Oswestry.

He said: “All our hard work was decided by null and void and it annoyed me for a long time but I wanted to carry on and get involved with something like this.”

Luckily not too many clubs have gone to the wall at that level at the moment, but Williams believes there may be a few more names to fall due to the pandemic.

Williams said clubs were desperate to put the nightmare of rolling lockdowns behind them and believed when restrictions are finally eased people will flock to support their local club in unprecedented. numbers.

He said: “Around here lads are itching to play football and if clubs have been run well locally, they I think everything will take off again.”

“There is a huge potential here, that was shown by our crowd recently,” explained Williams.

“It shows that local people want to watch local players and that is something we want to provide.

“Oswestry is a footballing town but the majority of players play elsewhere and that is something that has bugged me for a long time.

“We want to get everyone back playing for a team in Oswestry, and make that side really successful.”

Read more at jonny.journo.com.