The chairman of Whitchurch Cricket Club has expressed his disappointment as changes to the structure of the Birmingham League will see the Heath Road side back in Shropshire cricket next year.

Whitchurch won promotion back to the Birmingham League in 2017 to only find that from 2019 onwards, the league will be reduced to 24 first teams only.

That means Whitchurch will be returned to the Shropshire League next year, and chair Rod Jones admitted the club are distraught at last month's vote.

"We're absolutely disappointed – it went to the vote but we knew the outcome before we went to the meeting," he said.

"We're disappointed for one reason as we felt like the Shropshire Cricket League didn't put our view forward really as they'd made their mind up. There was no consultation and that's what we're really disappointed about.

"If they'd just spoken to all the Shropshire-based clubs in the Premier League – six out of seven voted against it – then ok. All the clubs will have their own reasons to vote for or against.

"A lot of them will be second teams. However, like a lot of clubs, we can't always fill our first team with players from Whitchurch because we're not big enough but we do better than most. We can't get 13/14 players. We're disappointed they didn't speak to us. Shropshire will be fine because they will have four good teams coming back to their league to play next year.

"But the standard in that competition isn't great. We're proud of being in the Birmingham League; however, they say money is going to players' pockets and not clubs. We don't do that – we're proud to be a community club. Dropping down to Shropshire will make recruitment hard; we'll never stop players leaving for a higher level, including our younger players."