With Non-League football seemingly looking squarely in the face of another season being null and voided, Tony Russell and his high-flying Cray Wanderers side could well be denied potential promotion for a second successive season.

“It’s frustrating in the sense that we’re doing some good work as a football club and normally you’d get rewarded for that in some way,” Russell told us.

“It’s bizarre that we’re not going to get rewarded for that! Your time in football comes and goes quite quickly for players and managers, so to write off two seasons is extremely frustrating, but what can we do?” he questioned.

“I think the League and the FA had no choice in stopping this season as the numbers got out of control, I think null and voiding this season will be about right as clubs just haven’t played the games – Bishop’s Stortford in our League I think have played five games! There’s just not enough football been played…”

He went on, “To me though, the biggest problem, and I think the decision looks even worse every single week, was to null and void last season, when everyone above us were doing points per game and we had seventy-five to eighty percent of the League completed.”

“To null and void the League I think was ridiculous and it’s now looking even more ridiculous! I thought it was at the time and I’m sure that the powers that be are realising that – that’s hard to take!”

“Until the last couple of months, COVID was, for me, just numbers that I saw on the news… this time around it seems a lot worse as now I know people who have been in trouble and really ill – a friend has even lost their Dad to it who got it over Christmas; a reasonably healthy guy who was sixty-four years old and was admitted to hospital only to die five days later!”

“This time round, I get it, I really do, and I haven’t got a problem with stopping – I really haven’t – as to carry on without testing for us was ridiculous!”

“I really don’t think that it was safe for us to carry on as I’m not comfortable with putting people in that position and then coming home to put my family potentially in a position – I haven’t got one problem with that!”

“My whole problem has been with the way it’s been managed from the hierarchy which I think has been really poor with the decision not to promote on points per game after playing so much of the season was such a stupid decision, and unfortunately it’s come back to bite everyone in the butt, because now it looks like they’re going to do it for a second season.”

“There are so many rumours so I’ll just sit and wait to be told what League I’m playing in next season and they only thing I’m concerned with will be the start date!”

“I genuinely tried not to give my opinion when they called a halt, but I was asked recently on a podcast about combining the last two seasons, but I think it’s hard for me as I’ve got a vested interest as a manager who’s in and around promotion.”

“It’s very easy for me to talk about what they should do now, but it will look diluted as some people will say that I’m just saying that because of the position that we’re in.”

“I think that there were a lot of suggestions made; I think I’ve been quite critical of the League – the Chairman and the Vice Chairman – I think that their leadership has been pretty poor if I’m honest!”

“I really don’t think that they gave it too much thought to null and void it first time and then move on. But the thing that they must realise is that under their watch, they’re about to right-off two seasons, and under their watch they’ve broken a chain as we’re in a chain as we feed step two, just like step two feeds step one and step one feeds League Two.”

“But they’ve now broke that chain for not one season but almost certainly for two seasons through their lack of leadership, lack of ideas, unwillingness to even try things – old school, just slam the hammer down; guilty; done; that’s it, move on and worry about it next year.” 

“At the end of the day, they will, somewhere down the line, have to answer for that! Someone will question why for two seasons, the powers that be couldn’t organise for clubs to go up or down, and they’ll have to deal with that.”

“Not me, as my job is to win games of football and in the last two years, and for goodness knows how long, I’ve done that! They’re not doing their job unfortunately, so that’s their axe to grind – it’s not mine!”

“The problem that we’ve got is that everyone is looking to the League for some guidance and they’re getting nothing!”