ST ASAPH City manager Daniel Brewerton is hoping the club’s hard work will not be in vain following the latest local lockdown measures coming into force.

The Saints’ volunteers behind the scenes made a monumental effort to get their ground up to the necessary Tier 3 criteria after flood damage earlier this year, but they are now facing even more uncertainty with additional measures restricting travel for his squad.

There is also the added pressure of arranging training at St Asaph Leisure Centre with the nights’ drawing in, which has also represented a significant problem due to the high demand for their 3G surface from other sides in the region.

Brewerton, said: “The local lockdown will impact training in a massive way, many clubs including ourselves have players that live across the county border and will be unable to train together.

“We’ve also got the situation of now having to move training onto the 3G in St Asaph, we’ve tried to secure bookings to allow us to train together, but the leisure centre can’t accommodate our needs because of the demand from other clubs, so we now have to look at sharing our booking with another club, because of the FAW rule of 30 maximum on a full-size pitch it means we have a maximum of 15 each, that puts us in a position of having to choose which players can and can’t train each week.

This will be a massive blow to the potential start of the season, we’re just over two weeks away from being allowed to play friendlies and we can’t even prepare properly with our full squad together, these friendlies are vital in the final stages of preparation for the season starting.

“The players know this themselves and it’s already been a massive challenge keeping them motivated and engaged in what’s been such a long preseason, we’ve put so much time and effort into the planning of this but it’s all been thrown into chaos with these new restrictions.”

Brewerton also voiced his concerns regarding the financial aspect of the season not starting, with clubs already paying their registration fees to the governing body in addition to other costs to ensure a safe training environment that falls into Covid-19 protocols.

“The long-term effects on clubs at grassroots level could be irreversible,” he added.

“There is a lot of doubt as to whether the season will actually go ahead at all, but in the meantime, we’re having to commit to spending on winter training, pitch maintenance, equipment to meet requirements for safety, player registrations fees and cup entry fees, all at a time when trying to get our usual sponsorship from local businesses is understandably a lot more challenging.

“If the season fails to get up and running then a lot of money will have been spent with no opportunity to recoup any of it, we stretched ourselves massively as a club to secure our Tier 3 status, I just hope it wasn’t all in vain.”