The Board of Directors have confirmed that after very careful consideration, Britton has taken the tough decision leave.

In his four-year tenure with the Bluebells, Britton and his coaches, John Lester and Martin Cutler, guided Yate back to the Southern Premier Division with a play-off triumph in 2018/19, beating Cinderford Town at Lodge Road.

Britton’s philosophy of embracing young talent matched the club`s development policy and created strong connections with professional clubs in the area and aided Yate with some excellent loan signings.

Britton issued the following statement on the club`s website: “It has been an honour and a privilege to manage this football club. Throughout our time here we have endeavoured to do our best for Yate Town FC. Hopefully we have given you something to enjoy during our tenure. There have been challenges and we have had plenty of ups and downs during the last four years.

“Our task was to maintain Southern League status with limited resources which we all achieved. In our third season we managed to gain promotion into the Southern Premier Division which was an incredible experience, to then maintain that position was an fantastic achievement, I hope you all agree we now leave the club in a much better position on the pitch than when we arrived.

“More often than not you leave a club because you have had a disagreement or you have not delivered on the pitch. I firmly believe we have over achieved in our time and we are rightly very proud of this success, John Lester, Martin Cutler and Nigel Hawkins and myself could not have worked harder to give Yate Town the platform it now has, we would have liked to have continued on this journey but feel now is the time to move on and allow someone else to take the club forward.

“One of my last tasks as manager was to ensure that the football matters were left in good hands, this is the reason why I was influential in bringing Richard Thompson back to Yate Town as director of football. I believe he is the right person to evolve the club on the pitch and hopefully influence off the pitch.”

The club will now search for a new manager to take over from Britton and continue to develop a resilient squad, offering opportunities to exciting young talent, and secure our position in the Southern Premier League.

For anyone interested, please email Richard Thompson - Director of Football on richardthompson5@blueyonder.co.uk or richard.thompson05@justice.gov.uk

Sebastian Parker