MEWIES Solicitors Craven League fixture secretary Trevor Coe has had a trying Easter.

On Maundy Thursday, he learnt that Pendle Forest had pulled out of the league with under a fortnight to go to the start of the season due to a shortage of both players and of people to do the jobs that keep a club going.

With the fixtures already out on both the league's website and in the league handbooks, and indeed on many club fixture cards, Coe then had the unenviable job of restructuring matches to try and avoid free dates.

Pendle Forest's withdrawal meant that there was one free space in Division Three, alongside the unsatisfactory free spaces in Division Five caused by there being nine teams.

League secretary Ann Coe contacted Wilsden and then Thornton-in-Craven to see if they wanted to stay in Division Three.

However, both clubs are in transition, hoping to rebuild with the introduction of young players, and did not want to stay up.

Next Eldwick & Gilstead, who missed out on promotion on run rate, were asked if they wanted to go up, to which they agreed after consultation with some of their squad.

Next she approached Haworth to see if they wanted to move back up to Division Four, which they readily agreed to do.

That left eight teams in Division Five, who have now got 22 games instead of 14.

The actual work of producing a fixture matrix proved to be something of a nightmare.

However, after 13 hours, they found one that worked, albeit with most of the original fixtures altered, with the league's executive committee rightly reckoning that it was better for all concerned to play as much cricket as possible.

Mr Coe explained: "The easiest thing would have been to leave free dates in Division Three and Division Five and, although the second draft didn't work, mainly due to Division Five being problematical, with some teams meeting once and others five times, the third did and every free date has now been filled.

"We got there in the end, and the idea is that we are playing as much cricket as we can."