MARCHAM, who have struggled since a mass exodus before the start of the season, have withdrawn their first team from Division 1 of the OCA.

Following a meeting of the OCA, league secretary Colin Olliffe said: “It was agreed to withdraw Marcham’s first team from Division 1, due to their not having enough players of sufficient standard.

“The second team will continue to play in Division 8 for the remainder of the season.

“And in 2012, Marcham plan to run two teams, which will play in the lower divisions yet to be decided.”

Marcham secretary Tre-vor Hill said: “We’ve gone down this route, because we’ve not been able to get two sides out, after losing several players from last season.

“As a club, we have tried to honour the fixture list which we thought we would be able to do.

“But in the past two weeks, we’ve been unable to raise two sides, due to football and holiday commitments.

“We’ve worked this situation through together with the league and this is a joint agreement.”

Despite a poor series results, Marcham players have stuck togther.

“It’s not been fun,” said Hill, but the spirit’s not dropped and that’s why we are confident of getting two sides out next season.”