THE problems which led Forden Football Club to fold after just two games offers a timely reminder of the challenges facing clubs nowadays.
Having formed in the summer the club was told after its first game in the Montgomeryshire League that it would not be able to use the Forden Community Field despite prior agreements.
However this is not a case of the community council being the villains of the peace and the efforts of the authority, in particular chairman Tim Davies, in making a compromise should be held up as an example.
The council feared over use of the pitch would damage the surface and their opinion on this matter must be respected.
I do not agree with this theory. After all the new club would play only nine games during a 10 month season. The village's Sunday League side would play seven over the same period.
That is a total of 16 games and I'm afraid if a ground cannot handle 16 games in 10 months then it is in a poor shape indeed.
Perhaps this was more a case of preserving the pitch for the pre-existing Sunday League side but I cannot help but feel that a massive opportunity has been missed by the council.
In its defence it did offer the use of land near to the current pitch which, of course it was not obliged to do, but at this point of the season how could a newly formed club even think about the logistics of purchasing and installing goalposts and maintenance equipment.
The whole sorry saga leaves the Montgomeryshire League once again in the doldrums and, in some people's opinion, facing a starkly bleak future.
This controversy is different to similar cases and at least Forden Community Council should be praised for its efforts to find a compomise even if their original argument of fearing the over use of the pitch fails to stand up to scrutiny when you look at the fixture list.
First of all there was Llanwddyn who departed due to players leaving for rival clubs. In the lake village at least however the club has kept its name by entering local summer knock-outs.
Then we Llandrinio Community Council pricing out Defaid Du with the village now home to another village's junior side with Llanymynech the sole users of the fine facilities.
Now Forden have returned to the history books after two games and the village now looks destined to remain unrepresented in league football.
The said thing is that this type of thing has been happening for many years. Clubs like Llandinam were lost due to council's selling up land for housing while Llandysilio's famous Rodney Rovers lost their ground to the Church of Wales in the 1960s.
The fact of the matter is not enough is done by the authorities to preserve football in Wales - this despite the fact that without football the economy of many towns and villages would be devastated.
Every other week many towns and villages host fixtures which attract at least 30-50 people to their ground. This form of tourism translates into money for the club and money for the local economy.
So while there are umpteenth organisations with the aim of preserving everything from castles and allotments to pathways and parks there is nothing to highlight and protect football clubs who, together, contribute so much to the culture of this part of Wales.
RIP Forden FC. We are hardly knew thee............