Whitchurch Alport’s transitional season saw two figureheads of the club stand down after an extraordinary general meeting was held in the Cadstones clubhouse on Sunday night.

It was revealed that chairman, Ryan Jardine, and vice-chairman, Johnny Allman, were both standing down with immediate effect.

Allman has been a club stalwart for four decades and is widely regarded as Mr Whitchurch Alport.

Jardine is a shrewd businessman and has been at the helm during the halcyon days of the past three seasons.

It’s hard to believe that less than three months ago Alport won the Shropshire Senior Cup for the first time in their history with a seismic victory against Shrewsbury Town in front of 250 of their own supporters at the Montgomery Waters Meadow.

Since then though, results haven’t been that great and the team have gone from being in the automatic promotion places and are slipping towards mid-table.

Saturday’s defeat at Burscough made it a miserable week for the Reds following the Monday night draw against Litherland.

With both those teams in the bottom two it looked like a great opportunity for Whitchurch to finally put an end to a damning set of statistics.

It’s now just one win in the last nine league games with Alport winless in seven Premier division games.

Earlier in the campaign the Yockings Park men were scoring freely and blowing sides away.

They were hardly behind and yet in 12 of the last 13 matches Alport have trailed and in only one of those games has the deficit been turned into three points.

Allman told the committee that the joint decision wasn’t taken lightly.

“I spoke with Ryan on Monday and we both decided that we thought it was the right time to stand aside,” he said.

“It’s been coming for a while now because we are both so busy in our day jobs that we don’t feel we have enough time to keep on our commitments here (at Alport).

We are unrecognisable from where we were say five years ago and no one could have predicted the fantastic growth since Luke (Goddard) came into the club.

It’s important that we don’t go out of here with any negative thoughts because we will both still be around.

Whitchurch Alport is in my DNA so I’ve no intention of walking away for good and Ryan feels the same way.

It’s a period of transition and there will always be change when you arrive at that point. Luke has agreed to take on the role of interim chairman until the end of the season and there is no one better placed to move this fantastic football club forward.”

Jardine echoed much of what Allman had to say: “We both feel that the club should be standing on its own two feet now.

It needs to be self-generating and we are already seeing signs of that with regular events being planned.

We have an outstanding facility here and every one of us should be proud of what’s been created.

It’s a unique club with a tremendous community feel and a healthy fanbase and we have achieved so much success together in such a short time.

There’s no reason why the club can’t continue to be successful but first, we must establish ourselves as a Premier division club.

Change isn’t something to fear; it should be embraced.

We are all only custodians and somewhere along the line there will be another group of people in charge of the club’s ambitions.

In the interim, we will need to have forecasts and put in place a healthy structure and live within our means.

Budgeting is so important because otherwise you become entrenched in throwing money at something that brings you no guarantees.

There are other clubs who have been in the Premier for years who spend more and more money every season in a bid to get out of this league.

Budgets much higher than ours and yet here we are competing with them with one of the best grounds in the league and potential to improve it still further.

I have loved my time at Whitchurch and would like to thank everyone for the support they have given me over the last couple of years.”

There can be little doubt that the uncertainty behind-the-scenes has affected performances on the field.

In the past few weeks, Goddard has stood down from managerial duties handing the reins to Matt Burton and he hasn’t yet been able to arrest the slide.

Goddard warned the committee to expect more changes over the coming weeks: “Please don’t be alarmed with the comings and goings that there are bound to be in the short-term.

Players will come in and others will go out as we cut our cloth accordingly.

We have a great guy in Matt Burton who has some great ideas and he’s a proper football man. We’ll need to offer him all our support and work through this period of transition.”