Road to nowhere?

REFERRING to an article in your sports coverage (June 25th), I am left at a loss to understand why it is that football administrators in this county seen more intent on taking the game away from us rather than administering it.

The story so far - Following a proud 108-year history, they decide to pull the plug on our county league, which instead becomes The Wessex League.

A pity, but what's in a name? It won't make any difference will it?

Well, yes actually. If our county sides are to remain in The Wessex, they will need to build stadia resembling, albeit on a small scale, grounds owned by professional clubs. If they don't or can't comply then, in two years time, they will be demoted to a local league (if they can find one who will take them).

Enter Bob Crompton and a number of like-minded persons who are prepared to revive the Hampshire League in order that teams who do not play in venues that look like mini-versions of St Mary's can continue to compete against sides from around the county rather than just teams based in their own town.

At the outset, the new league would boast just one division but its creators have the foresight to realise that their league will be a natural place of homecoming for numerous clubs who find, in two years time, that either they haven't got as much money as they thought they would or that their local councils weren't as accommodating as they had hoped vis-a-vis planning permission.

So, an ideal solution? Can everyone live happily ever after? Well, no actually. A sub-section of the Hampshire FA puts a stop to it, decreeing that "The proposed new league would have no benefit to the development of grass roots football," whatever that means. So what was so divisive about the continuation of The Hampshire League? Were they intending to play with a different shaped ball or something?

Or is it simply a case of a group of high-minded individuals insisting that everyone has to live by their ideals and that there is no room for diversity or compromise? Shame on you, Hampshire FA; why are you so hell-bent on spoiling the game for so many people?

NICK BROWN, Chamberlayne Road, Eastleigh.