RHUDDLAN Town manager Wayne Hughes has outlined his dismay at the latest lockdown restrictions and the impact it is having on his squad.

The Vale of Clwyd and Conwy League Premier Division champions were set to embark on Tier 4 next season after a memorable campaign last time out, but Hughes is now unable to travel to their base at Pengwern College as he lives in Abergele.

Hughes has been vocal about the potential for significant damage to interest in football at the grassroots level thanks to the Football Association of Wales’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which is already having an affect on numbers at training with no start date on the horizon.

He said: “We have two other lads who live in Abergele Ben Smith and Rhys Machin who can’t make it as well so the numbers in training are massively down now.

“We are probably managing to get ten players a week now as we have no new information about a starting date.

“I really can’t see us playing football this year now and with the weather starting to kick in well you won’t get many games played in January and February. We are still planning for a season to start but who knows what will happen.

“You can see players who have been playing lower leagues making the step up now so they can play some football even lads signed on to English clubs now who played in our leagues last season.

“It’s such a huge blow for so many clubs who have been working hard over the years, to have a squad ready for a season and then to have it ripped apart is gutting for clubs, if a season did start and a club has lost four or five players then that’s going from title contenders to mid-table or even a relegation battle.”

With all levels of football currently being played in the English system, Hughes added that the current predicament football in the region finds itself in is a “disaster” that it might not recover from.

“Everyone is frustrated as all levels of football are being played in England even Sunday league but absolutely nothing for us,” he added.

“More clubs will fold, more managers will give up and the players will also start working and doing other things on weekends. It is a massive disaster for grassroots football in Wales.”