George Town Cricket Club will not field a senior team in the 2020-21 Cricket North season following a meeting with the competition's board on Wednesday night.
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Despite winning a third-grade flag two years ago, the Saints have largely struggled for numbers for the best part of a decade, pulling out of A-grade ahead of the 2014-15 season.
The Cricket North board arrived at a "disappointing" but unanimous decision to deny the Saints a spot in this year's grade competition in light of player departures and low training attendances.
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"The George Town Cricket Club has been part of the Cricket North competition for a number of decades now so it's always disappointing when we have a situation where a club's just not able to continue," Cricket North administrator David Fry said.
"Unfortunately they've been losing players for quite some time and haven't been able to rebuild since getting out of first-grade a number of years ago ... to the point now where it would appear they'd be flat-out even putting a single third-grade team on the paddock.
"We are aware they were intending to play in the second and third-grade competitions this season but their player numbers have simply not allowed them to be able to do that."
George Town president and coach Winston Mason said the decision was a wake-up call for the region's cricketers.
"It was very hard to come up with an argument against their decision to be honest," Mason said.
"The last couple of years we've been lacking accountability on and off the field - they gave us plenty of opportunity to get things right, for the past month they've been very patient with us and given us time to get things in order but the players just weren't coming to training and Cricket North had to form a roster.
"We've just got to accept it, try to get on with life and try to make the situation better."
The Saints' next move will be to shore up numbers for a senior team and seek admission to the TCL.
"We're just investigating what the procedure is - they may not even accept us, it'll be up to them," Mason said.
"We're in no way a bargaining position, if they accept us - well and good - if they don't, we just have to take it on the chin."
The Saints fielded second and third-grade sides last season, the former finishing winless at the bottom of table and the latter registering three wins.
The club retains to plans to field at least one junior side and an over-40s outfit this season.
"We're very encouraging and supportive of them continuing in the junior competitions and that really does need to be the basis of future grade teams for the club," Fry said.
"The club in the past has relied heavily on players from other areas coming in and playing for George Town and it's obviously not sustainable.
"They need to start rebuilding the club from the juniors up and once that happens we'd certainly welcome them back with open arms in to our senior competitions."
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