RELEGATION is always one of the hardest things to accept as a football fan.

Even if the team you support, like the Magpies, having been staring down the barrel for some time, it is the bitterest of pills to swallow when it happens.

For Dorchester Town supporters, relegation from the Conference South this season would not have been on the agenda when their team finished eighth with a club record points haul last term.

But big decisions regarding the ownership of the club were made after the final ball was kicked and the effects, at least in the short term, had a detrimental impact on the fortunes of the team.

In trying to preserve the long-term future of Dorchester Town, the Community Trust, who took on half of Shaun Hearn’s majority shareholding, simply had to balance the books.

No-one wants to see a team, and a successful one at that, ripped apart and consequently relegated, but safeguarding the club for future generations is likely to come at a price.

When you take into consideration those players that left last summer and during the season, the fact that the wage bill was cut on more than one occasion, and the side featured more than 40 different faces throughout the league campaign, it has been an achievement by the management and squad to keep the fight going for so long.

Yes, it could take a couple of seasons for the Magpies to find their feet back in the Southern League, but with a core of experienced players staying to fight for the cause, a couple of derbies with the noisy neighbours down the road, as well as matches against the likes of Poole Town to hopefully get the crowds coming back, all is not lost as some people may think.

They say sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward.