The Watford Sunday League 2020/21 season has been cancelled and declared null and void.

The league asked clubs for their opinions on restarting the season in April after it was halted due to the corornavirus lockdown.

Grassroots Football is allowed to return from March 29, but just less than half of the teams in the Watford Sunday League were against a restart.

John Rowbotham, Chairman of the Watford Sunday League, sent out a statement to clubs last night informing them that the 2020/21 season will not resume.

He said it would be "nonsensical" to attempt continuing when divisions might be reduced by three or four teams.

“Obviously we would have preferred 100 per cent agreement to any proposal and would have acted differently had a significant majority voted in favour, however, the result showed almost half the votes were against a restart," he said.

“I would add that the Officers of the Management Committee were entitled to vote as per the Constitution and they were also divided on this matter."

Mr Rowbotham added that attempting to restart the season with reduced numbers in each division could see the final result not reflecting the “true position or the standard of our participating teams”, possibly making promotion and relegation battles a “farce”.

He also said that completing the league would have resulted in fixtures being played at the end of June and despite double headers and evening matches being played, factors such as the availability of pitches, the weather and any further effects due to Covid could not be “ignored”.

“We obviously did not want a situation where any restart could be further disrupted by matters outside our control which might mean stopping the season again prior to or stopping a final completion,” he said.

He also thanked clubs for taking part in the vote and said the committee did not want to make a decision without the views of clubs.

He added: "Whilst I know that this decision will not please everyone I do believe it to be the most sensible outcome.

“This decision has also been adopted by many leagues throughout the country with the collective hope that the worst effects of the pandemic should be behind us by the start of a new season.”

But despite the season being cancelled Mr Rowbotham proposed to organise a new Cup Competition for clubs to compete in should they want to play.