UNCERTAINTY now surrounds the future of Bangor City following their relegation to the Huws Gray Alliance.

After an unsuccessful FAW Domestic Licence appeal, their time in the JD Welsh Premier League will end following their final game at Bala Town on Friday, which ironically could see them finish in second spot behind The New Saints of Oswestry Town and achieve a European spot that they will be unable to take up.

Fans have been left furious at the club’s inability to secure the necessary paperwork to remain at the top of the pyramid, and it is going to be a very eventful Fan Forum on Monday night to discuss the matter with board members.

The move is extremely damaging to the JD Welsh Premier League as a whole, crowds have been dwindling for a number of years now and having another big name drop out of the top flight is going to damage this even further.

It is not what the FAW would have wanted, and they no doubt afforded every opportunity to City to get their house in order and alleviate their concerns, and they must now put things right off-the-pitch as soon as they possibly can to ensure that this sort of situation never happens to them again.

This is a squad that has performed extremely well this season and could have been looking at the prospect of a return to European football next term, but will now be mixing it with the likes of Prestatyn Town, Holywell Town, Airbus Broughton and fierce rivals Rhyl in the second tier.

Whether they will be doing this with current manager Kevin Nicholson at the helm remains to be seen. The talented young manager has done a superb job of enhancing his growing reputation this season, and there will be no shortage of suitors if the City boss decides to move on following this setback.

Same goes for some of the very talented playing staff, with the likes of Dean Rittenberg, Brayden Shaw, Stephen Hewitt and Gary Taylor-Fletcher all harbouring ambitions that do not involve playing in the Huws Gray Alliance, so it would be a huge surprise to see these figures and others at the club remain for their attempts to secure promotion.

The next few months will be critical not only for the Citizens’ short-term future, but also for the long-term stability of one of the most storied clubs in the history of the domestic game.

They will be joining one of the most competitive leagues anywhere in the country and getting out of it at the first opportunity will be more difficult than they probably comprehend.

The HGA is littered with standout teams that will be fancying their chances next term, and while this current City squad would be red-hot favourites for the title it is hard to envisage anything other than a complete squad overhaul that puts their status within the division up in the air in terms of what they can achieve.

As is the case with the majority of these sort of situations, it is the fans that suffer the most. The Citizens’ faithful are a very loyal bunch who follow their side across the country in large numbers consistently, but they have every right to feel let down by recent events and it will be interesting to see how they rally round during this low point in their history, and whether they even bother doing so at all.

Their relegation will be a bitter blow to the league and to the club, although they have arguably the biggest game in Welsh domestic football to look forward to in their derby contests with Rhyl, the significance of relinquishing their top flight status cannot be underestimated.