....team, Oxford City Nomads, have been withdrawn from the Uhlsport Hellenic Premier and Buildbase FA Vase competitions and the club won’t be running a Nomads side in future years.
Merritt told http://www.oxfordcityfc.co.uk: “The structure of the Nomads doesn’t fit with the future plans of the club.
“Nomads was structured with a different affiliation to Oxford City FC, meaning it is an independent first-team competing in a first-team competition.
“The club requires a more flexible development structure for both our young players and also for a team that can support first-team players needing to play competitive games when they are not playing as a regular in the first-team.
“As Oxford City have developed through the non-League Pyramid, nearly all players at first-team level are playing under contract, which means they cannot play for Nomads unless we were to loan the player for a minimum 28-day period.
“Clearly this has difficulties for providing the best structure to support the needs of the club and the player pathway.
“This decision has come a year ahead of our planned date and was accelerated following news that manager Rob Tutton wished to stand down.
“There were many reasons behind Rob’s decision and were discussed at length. Paul Mulvany, who assisted Rob throughout last season, will hopefully remain involved with the club in a coaching capacity. He is a terrific coach with an abundance of knowledge to share.
“We would like to thank Rob for all of his efforts, achievements and application to the club over the past fifteen years as both player and coach. He has achieved great success on the pitch and off the pitch – a great club man to which the door is always open.
“For all teams at Hellenic League Premier level, there is a large amount of human resource required in terms of a committee, match day staff, volunteers to provide the support required at this level. It has been increasingly difficult to find the volunteer base to ensure the matchday provision is suitable.
“We will be launching a new development team for primarily under-21/under-23 players for 2019/20 with the flexibility of being able to play overage players (in the event of return from injury). The league we will enter is unclear at the moment, with the likelihood the National League will be introducing an under-21 competition for next season and there are other alternative options”. |