Ollerton Town Football Club can announce that it has withdrawn it's appeal against the club's rejected lateral movement application, accepting it's place in the Northern Counties East League Division One for the 2023-2024 season.

At the end of last season, the club's management committee took the decision that a lateral move to the United Counties League would be in the best interests of the football club. The club still maintain that, and believe that a move to the UCL makes more sense for all concerned. We felt so strongly that we were willing to push forward with an appeal in the hope of getting the move we seek.

However, pre-season is now only a week or two away and continuing with the current uncertainty would have meant that the club's plans for the new season were at great risk of being seriously delayed or hampered, leaving us catching up with clubs when there is already so much work to do following the well-documented troubles the club faced at the back end of last season.

The club also had no confidence in winning the appeal so felt it was better to now focus our efforts on supporting the new management team in their attempts to make us as competitive as we can be in an extremely competitive, cash-rich division.

Remaining in the NCEL will be a huge challenge. It will affect the club financially and seriously test the club’s man power. Our ageing committee members will have to go above and beyond once again, whilst our younger members, who work long hours in the Nottinghamshire area, will have to try and balance the commitment of the NCEL with their jobs.

However, we now look forward to supporting our new look team and hope that we can look forward to a period of much-needed stability and progress after a difficult few months.