Club Statement: Relegation confirmed - the rebuilding has started

Saturday's defeat at home to Warrington Rylands, despite a spirited performance on the day, means that the relegation we have long feared has now been confirmed.

There can be no sugar-coating the fact that, with very few exceptions, this last season has been one to forget on the pitch. League tables do not lie, and the fact that survival in the Northern Premier League Premier Division is already mathematically impossible in March with seven games left to play says a great deal about how difficult things have been.

Blyth Spartans AFC is hugely grateful to those loyal fans who have stuck with the team throughout - and thoroughly understanding of those who have found it too much to take along the way. Relegation is hard to swallow.

Relegation is not however the end of the story - nor indeed is it even the most significant outcome of the season. The most crucial outcome is that we still have a club to support, a club with not only a distinguished history but also a promising future.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that is only five months since Blyth Spartans were unable to fulfil home fixtures and faced the real prospect of disappearing altogether. The club's transition into community ownership has provided the most dependable basis for a sustainable future, and we are eternally grateful to the club's supporters, the town and its community, and to the football family further afield for all your efforts in keeping the Spartans flame alive.

We are not yet completely out of the woods financially, and the hard work needs to continue, but the support that has been forthcoming in all its various forms - the sterling work of our fabulous volunteers, the match tickets bought, the merchandise purchased through the club shop, the GoFundMe appeal contributions, the many other financial donations we have received, the support for fundraising initiatives like the Peter Beardsley talk-in, and of course the takings at the bar - have all meant that despite the bitter pill of relegation, we live to fight another day.

The reset of the club is already underway, and the rebuilding required for a much more successful season from August has begun. It is our intention to rebuild the club and root it firmly in the community on a permanently sustainable basis. We will live within our means, but it is our plan to build the financial basis of the club through attendances, sponsorship and related activities, to allow us to invest in a team that can compete and return the club to where we feel it belongs. We are already planning an appealing and challenging pre-season and starting work on putting together a young and competitive playing squad with a firm eye on the future.

Team manager Michael Connor said