MALVERN Town are set to boycott next season’s Smedley Crooke Cup after a dispute with competition organisers.
Les Jones’ men were due to face Bromsgrove Sporting in the final on Saturday after a Dave Reynolds winner saw off Paget Rangers in the last four.
Town were, however, forced to withdraw from the competition after organisers refused to re-arrange the cup final day, which fell on the same weekend of the club’s tour to Torquay.
Managing director Chris Pinder said he felt the cup’s committee had “devalued” their own competition by not finding an alternative date and he told the Observer the club will not be re-entering next year.
“It is really disappointing as the lads have turned their season around and a cup final day with all the trimmings that go with it would have been a enjoyable occasion for everyone at the club,” he said.
“The competition has a ‘shrug shoulders’ attitude to the problem and they don’t seem to care that it is not the true finalists in the final. I am just astonished.
“We informed the cup before we took part in the semi finals that we would not be able to take part on May 10 because the whole club was on tour.
“The league knew and they gave us the weekend off and the cup knew well in advance, so maybe they did not expect us to get there.”
Pinder added: “Since becoming the operator of this club I have noticed that we seem to get the rough end of the stick so it is about time we followed through when we said ‘unless you move it we won’t play in the competition’.
“I think they thought it was a shallow threat, but it is not and we have had support of other tournament officials when we’ve hosted competitions.”