Wednesday Feb 21, 2007
League must take priority
Tamworth Football Club have made a tough but very carefully considered decision to withdraw from the Staffordshire Senior Cup.
It follows a protest lodged by Rushall Olympic after their defeat by Tamworth on Tuesday February 13.
Rushall claim that the Tamworth team included two players who were ineligible due to the timing of their registrations and while this is strongly disputed, it means that the process for Staffordshire Football Assocation to deal with the issue cannot be completed in time for the Tamworth v Chasetown semi-final to go ahead as scheduled next Tuesday, February 27.
With Tamworth already having a congested 'Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday' fixture list, fitting in another date for a rearranged SSC tie could not be foreseen without impacting on the top priority efforts of concentrating on the league. It was decided this could not be allowed to become a distraction and therefore, reluctantly, withdrawal from the competition was considered to be in the very best interests of Tamworth Football Club in the circumstances.
Having studied the rules and sent a detailed response to the Staffs FA, Tamworth are confident that they were not in breach. But with the timescale consequences of the county FA having to launch a commission and set a date for a hearing, TFC could see no alternative but to pull out.
Rushall had challenged the eligibility of Gary Mills and Michael Briscoe on the grounds that the tie against Tamworth was originally set for Tuesday December 5 and for players to be eligible they had to be registered with the club by noon on December 1. After postponment of the tie initially, it was rearranged for February 20 and then, at Tamworth's request, brought forward a week to the 13th. This was still nearly two months after it should have been played and TFC would have argued this would have had a bearing on registration deadline for players. No communication or correspondence had been received from the Staffs FA on the subject of registration in relation to such a delay in the tie being completed.
Russell Moore,
Secretary/General Manager
Tamworth FC
