Sad news from the Eastern Counties League Division One South, the division that the Clapton CFC Men’s First Team play in. Despite recent attempts to save Dunmow Town, who were sat in 19th place with 20 points, the club has now officially folded.

Dunmow recently notified the league of their intention to withdraw – only for that to be paused when interested parties stepped up to try to rescue them. However, those efforts proved to be in vain and their exit has now been confirmed.

All their upcoming fixtures have been cancelled, which includes our away game scheduled for March at Hoddesdon Town, where they had been groundsharing.

All their existing results will now be expunged, which includes our 5-0 win earlier at the Old Spotted Dog Ground in August. That means we now have 3 fewer points – but other teams around us also drop points. For instance, Lymore Gardens lose 6 points from their 2 games, Stansted lose 4 points from 2 games, Newbury Forest lose 3 from 1 game, Brimsdown lose 1 from 1 game. Coggeshall Town, Hutton and Rayleigh Town had not yet played Dunmow so are unchanged.

Dunmow will appear at the bottom of the table with zero points. (We’ll update the table on our website soon).

Dunmow formed in 2020 playing in the Essex & Suffolk Border League and were promoted to the Eastern Counties League in 2023. They reached the play-off finals in their first season, losing to Wormley Rovers, who had beaten us in the semis. Before moving to Hoddesdon, Dunmow had groundshared at Braintree Town, Heybridge Swifts and Saffron Walden Town.