OFFICIALS and fans of Maldon and Tiptree and Heybridge Swifts are expecting that the current Isthmian North season will be declared “null and void” by the league next week, writes JON LONGMAN.

The Emergency General Meeting of club chairman decided that no decision could be made before next Monday when PM Boris Johnson is expected to reveal the road map to getting the UK back to something like normal after the Covid pandemic.

Once the PM has made his announcement then The FA will review the situation and reveal football’s plans for the rest of the season.

The FA will instruct the Step 4 (Isthmian Premier), Step 5 (Isthmian North) and Step 6 (Essex Senior and Eastern Counties) to make key decisions and is likely to recommend that the season is declared “null and void”.

The EGM, held on Zoom, was largely a talking shop with most Isthmian clubs making it clear that there was insufficient time to play the outstanding games before the May 31 deadline.

Maldon and Tiptree still have 33 league games to play while the Swifts have 30 games to play or re-arrange.

Heybridge chairman Gary White told the meeting that it might help if the season ended with a handful of friendlies to reward the patient fans.

“The EGM was a bit of non-event really — the ones who were talking had a vested interest in the season carrying on,” said White.

“Personally, I cannot see the Isthmian League carrying on given that we started late and teams such as Bury Town and Cambridge City have played only four league games.”

The Jammers, who had excellent runs in both the FA Cup and the FA Trophy, will be unhappy that a second successive season has been wiped off the slate but “null and void” appears to be the end of the road.

They are still furious that a premature end was declared to the 2019-20 season, denying them promotion and resulting in the superb squad built up by manager Wayne Brown being plundered by clubs higher up the FA Pyramid.