The chairman of Mildenhall football club has lashed out at fellow clubs and league management following the postponement of their Festive Derby against Lakenheath.

The game, due to be played on Monday, December 27 was postponed by Thurlow Nunn League management on December 21.

Bill Flynn, club chairman, said in an open letter: "I decided to let my anger subside before I made any chairman’s view on the recent capitulation by the Thurlow Nunn League management committee to the negligible threat of the Omicron variant of Covid.

"The whole process has been misguided, and the outcome is misjudged."

Mr Flynn continued, saying he first found out about the potential of cancelling the game on Monday, December 20, when he received an email canvassing views on cancelling the December 27 fixtures.

He said: "I responded saying that I saw no reason to cancel our particular fixture if neither club was completely compromised by Covid cases within the playing squads.

"The next morning, December 21, the TNL committee sent out a message that all matches on December 27 had been cancelled."

The Mildenhall chairman added "apparently 66% of the respondents were of a mind to cancel their fixtures on December 27, and that is the real problem."

He said: "The unabated pedalling of fear over Omicron has created a situation whereby over half the clubs in our league are following the fake information, and letting fear rule their heads.

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Two days later, and the authorities are making cautionary optimistic sounds about the reduced threat of Omicron, and perhaps Christmas won’t have to be ruined.

"Of course, the damage has been done. Restaurants have seen bookings cancelled and the TNL are not playing on their busiest day of the season.

"I can get angry, but there is nothing to be done about this particular thing now. Our whole playing budget has now been compromised by the loss of this money spinner."

Peter Hutchings, chair of the Thurlow Nunn League, said: "In the run up to Christmas the league had a number of clubs concerned about playing on Boxing Day.

"We balloted the league and found that two-thirds of the member clubs thought we should cancel all games on Boxing Day.

"I have every sympathy with the clubs that wanted to play and all of them have been emailed asking them what they want to do regarding the games on January 3."