THE Walter C. Parson Peninsula League released a two-part statement on August 10 regarding the problems that have befallen Axminster Town FC.

Axminster had, the day prior, notified the league that “Due to player shortages from the summer and exasperated in the week since the 0-11 defeat at home to Cullompton Rangers”, they couldn’t fulfil the fixture scheduled for the 10th against Bovey.

On top of that, the East Devon-based club were requesting the postponement of their two subsequent games to give them time to rectify the issue and build up a squad again.

This decision has been “Subject to debate by the officers of the league” and was “not taken lightly”, with the powers that be seeking “the views of the two directly affected clubs, other clubs in the division and league board members.”

The “First priority [of the league] is to give any member club an opportunity to resolve issues and continue in membership, rather than risk more games being unfilled” which could further lead to fines, points deductions and eventually expulsion from the league.

“Using rule 8.17, the officers have decided that in the ‘overall interests of the competition’, we will postpone until later in the season, the fixtures scheduled for the 13th and 17th August. The board, at its next meeting, will consider any written submissions for any of the three directly affected clubs as to any conditions for the re-arrangement details of the fixtures, but for now, the decision has been taken to postpone these two matches.”

As is the case with any potentially contentious decision, the league’s announcement has been met with a variety of response and Secretary Phil Hiscox has written on Twitter about his weekend being “Spoilt with level of frankly social media abuse.”

In an exclusive statement to Tindle News (Mid-Devon Advertiser, South Hams Gazette and Tavistock Times Gazette), Hiscox says how “Social media allows everyone to have an instant opinion, normally framed from their standpoint, rather than from studying the actual rules the decision falls under”, labelling such platforms as a “two-headed monster”.

He also highlighted the knock-on effect of the quick-fire reaction and the importance of the people making these decisions. “This is a huge issue for society in general, those volunteers that put themselves up to run all sorts of community organisations are generally getting on in years, working their socks off for the benefit of others and are very difficult to recruit.”

One manager of a Peninsula League club spoke of having “A lot of time for Phil” and outlined this as one of the “best run leagues” he has been involved in, with a lot of people coming to the support of Hiscox on Twitter too.

Axminster Town wrote on social media of their regret over the decision, also saying that “The club has asked the manager Justin Faulkner to step down which he has accepted” and wishing him the best for the future. Axminster were yet to comment at the time of going to print but any response will be available in the updated web article.

At the end of the day, no decision of this magnitude is going to be met with complete harmony, no matter which way it went.