It is now possibly in excess of three months since it was brought to the League's attention that Flixton may have been playing an ineligible player in a number of their games, but absolutely nothing about it was made publicly available.

This week the league tables confirm that a points deduction has been made "for breach of league rules", and it totals 21 points, effectively ending the Manchester side's season. Yet there remains no official mention of who the player was, or the games he played in which he shouldn't have.

What we are led to believe is that the teams who gained any points against Flixton in these games are set to keep their points, and those who lost the games in question simply pick up no points.

Without doubt it has been a hard one to call for the League, but one casts their mind back to 2000/1, when Castleton Gabriels beat Atherton L.R. 2-1 in the final game of the season, thus denying L.R. the three points needed to overtake ourselves and claim the second and final promotion slot from Division Two.

"Oh, the pain, the pain!"

It later transpired that Gabriels had fielded an ineligible player, and it was he who scored the winning goal in the game. Yet a decision was made within 24 hours that the game would be replayed, giving L.R. a second chance to claim promotion. They duly did, winning the replayed match 4-2.

That wasn't the only occasion in which a game was replayed either. Two seasons ago Cheadle Town and Padiham played out a 1-1 draw, with the former fielding an ineligible player. No mention was made of this fact on the website or newsletter, yet it too was rescheduled for a later date.

So why this season have the League dilly-dallied around for weeks on end, and made a completely different decision to the ones made then (the first in double-quick time)? In our game Flixton's ineligible player also found the net, effectively winning the game for them by putting them ahead 2-1 in the last few minutes.

Granted their are a lot more games involved, but surely the fact remains that if the crime remains the same, so should the punishment? No doubt there are other teams as well as Nelson who will feel they have lost out in this unfortunate fiasco, teams who may well end up being a vital point or two short of promotion come May.

It's hard to say what the right decision should have been, although I suggest at the very least they should have come to it weeks earlier, and perhaps offered all affected teams the opportunity to replay the game or stick with the original result?

While we and teams X, Y and Z etc. will no doubt feel somewhat aggrieved at all this, one thing is for sure - the official website and newsletter should be uploading full information about such issues, with details of the players, the games, and the enquiries (and we remain in the dark as to why Oldham Town and Norton United have had points deductions!).