Atherstone Town chairman on season cancelled: We could be blowing the whistle on football at Sheepy Road, full stop

Outgoing Atherstone Town chairman Brian Henney has sounded a second warning to football lovers in the town that the coronavirus-affected decision to scrap the 2019/20 season could lead to an "end of the show-show" for the Sheepy Road club.

As non-league clubs were told this afternoon they will have to replay this season again beginning in August, the Adders overlord was fearful that no one will step into his vacating role or fill the currently empty ones of other officers at the Mark Webster Community Stadium.

When told by Nub News the ATCFC season was "over" as sport, along with everyday life, has been 'put on hold' by the pandemic outbreak – Mr Henney said it had still come as a "bit of a shock".

The football authorities had been mulling over alternatives to get round the virus – extend play well into the summer and hope Covid-19 effects had died down by then; halt the season but use a pools panel method of predicting the outstanding results to effect a promotion and relegation result; or abandon the season.

They chose the latter – announcing that the FA and leagues at steps three to six of the National League System had reached a consensus that this season was being ended with immediate effect and all the results "expunged", adding: "This will mean no promotion or relegation of clubs."

Chairman Henney commented: "It has left us with a lot of thing to think about.

"The pools' panel idea of predicting results could have seen us promoted, and that would meant having to find a better team.

"As it is, we'll be replaying the season again from August.

"But while other clubs will be planning for 2020/21, we have to think about putting a team together – and first, and most importantly, whether we can put a committee together to keep the club in existence."

The chairman, who told Nub News last week he was not seeking re-election at the May 17 annual meeting, said at the moment all the five committee posts were vacant and "as of this moment, no one has put their name forward for any of the positions".

He explained that the ATCFC constitution requires a quorum of at least four of those five positions for the club to continue in its present form.

Mr Henney would not be drawn on whether former chairman Justin Palmer – who stepped down in 2018 – might be persuaded back to Sheepy Road while only four miles down the road is old Southern League rivals Nuneaton Borough, now under chairman and manager Jimmy Ginnelly.

The virus has done no lower-tier club any favours financially, and earlier this month Liberty Way club launched an urgent online appeal 'Nuneaton Borough Football Club COVID-19 Help' – with the aim of raising £5,000 – to raise funds amid fears it may not be able to pay players and a subsequent loss of jobs.

For Atherstone, March has seen not only a premature end to a season but their hopes of reaching Wembley in the FA Vase dashed at the quarter-final stage and their promotion charge – with eight games in hand – thwarted.