More than 125 years of continuous football came to a sad and inevitable end on Friday when Andover Football Club’s remaining board members announced that the club were to be wound up with immediate effect and they would be resigning from the Southern League.

It was news which stunned many but equally came as little surprise to others as the Portway-based club had stumbled from one crisis to another in recent years and had been forced to resort to advertising in the national football press for prospective new benefactors prepared to fund them on the pitch.

It appeared that a new board was in place and ready to tackle the season in the Southern League along with a revamped reserve team in the new Wyvern League but newly-appointed chairman Martin Moody resigned on Wednesday.

His statement read: “It is with regret that I have resigned as chairman of Andover Football Club. During the last three weeks many ghosts have appeared out of cupboards to a point where I am not prepared to put my name as chairman as I find this totally unacceptable and will not work in this kind of environment.”

Moody arrived last month along with Southampton FC youth coach Steve Moss, with whom he had much success with neighbours Winchester City a few years ago but Moss landed a full-time job with Football League side Rotherham United which left the new chairman to pick up the pieces.

More on this breaking story will appear here later