[Henry Morton]

A very informative letter in today's NLP from John Sheppard , Secretary of Oxford City.

He points out that ". . . when a player registers with a club, at least at Level 4 of the Pyramid, the registration form asks the questions :-Item 6 (i) on the form, has the player ever played outside England ? (ii) If yes, has the player obtained clearance from the Football Association ?

Clearly the responsibility is with clubs to ensure that this has been established, should he have played outside England.

If needs be, a request to the FA, who would contact the respective FA in the country in which he had played. This also applies to Wales, Scotland and Ireland."

Clearly [Henry Morton continues], though , the definition of "Registering with a club" is to do with the First Team Proper of that club , otherwise no Reserves Leagues in the Pyramid could even function .

Reserves Leagues have long functioned as an opportunity for new young players to gain an idea of what football is about at a level beyond their school or pub-league experience . They have been , and should remain , an arena for experimentation , trials , fitness-testing and evaluation of every kind.
They emphatically are not a "Subs Side" , nor should they be considered as such.

ASFC is , therefore , totally innocent in the James Robinson affair.

Nevertheless, our thoughts and hopes must be with everyone at Altrincham . Let's hope that common sense (if it still exists) will prevail in this very unfortunate business .