FALMOUTH Town manager Andrew Westgarth believes everyone ‘can move on’ after the FA declared the 2019/20 South West Peninsula League season null and void.

Following a series of meetings between the Football Association and key figures of non-league football this week, the FA declared on Thursday that all results from the 2019/20 season in steps 3 to 6 of the National League System have been expunged.

The decision was made after all football was suspended on March 16 following the coronavirus outbreak, and while Westgarth is disappointed with the decision, he admits that it may be for the best as everyone can move on.

READ MORE: South West Peninsula League Season declared null and void

He said: “A lot has been written and said about it and in one way it’s good to finally get a line drawn underneath it because a lot of people had a lot of opinions on it, information was changing daily or it wasn’t coming out that quick.

“It’s disappointing from a footballing sense but to finally know where we stand is the best outcome, and I think getting it done this early [means] everyone can just accept it and move on.

“A lot has been written about teams at the top of the league being disappointed, but I could sense their frustration if there were three or four games to go but we still had like 15 games to play.

“It might have been a short period in calendar terms, we only had two months to go, but in footballing terms there was so much to play for and if you look at previous there have been a lot of teams that have led the way or being there or thereabouts and then fallen short towards the end of the season. There are no givens in football and that’s why it’s the game we all love.”

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What is yet to be decided and is now a topic of debate is whether individual records, such as goal and appearance statistics, are also expunged.

“If I put my playing head on, as a striker we are selfish, that’s why we play up front!” Westgarth said. “So you’d naturally be disappointed with that if you’ve got goal records and things like that, and you’ve got to feel sorry for the teams that are leading the way and looking to break records and such if they are now going to be null and void.

“It’s a period that we’ve never encountered before so to make it null and void is probably the only fair outcome.”

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One crumb of comfort coming Westgarth’s way is that cup competitions are still active as things stand, with Town having reached the semi-finals of both the Walter C Parson League Cup and Cornwall Charity Cup.

The South West Peninsula League has confirmed that it intends to hold the remaining four matches of this season’s League Cup in July, with the last quarter-final tie early in July, the two semi-finals in mid-July and the final at the end of July, but this will depend on how the situation develops between now and then.

Westgarth said: “I think in the Premier League they do that, they go off and play in all these competitions before the season starts, so that’s not a bad idea and I suppose that is the one fortunate thing about cup football.

“If you’re going for the league title you don’t get any second chance so to speak, but with the cups we can be fortunate enough to end the season or start the season with silverware.

“But I suppose with all of this we’ve just got to play it by ear because we don’t know how long this is going to last for. It’s all well saying we can’t wat for that to happen in July, whereas in reality we could be still housebound by July.”