DORCHESTER Sports’ manager Ashley James admitted his disappointment at his club’s latest promotion snub.

Sports have applied for promotion to Step 6’s Wessex Division One for the past two seasons, only to have their applications denied in favour of other clubs by the FA.

On this occasion, Jewson Dorset Premier League champions Hamworthy Rec and Hampshire Premier League (HPL) side Fleetlands were chosen for promotion.

Therefore, Sports – who finished third in the DPL – and HPL outfit Denmead were the unlucky duo at Step 7.

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Speaking to Echosport, James said: “We’re obviously disappointed because I felt we did enough to merit a place to go up.

“We pretty much knew that they were going to take one up from each league.

“Around Christmas time there was lots of rumours that they were going to take three, in the end it was just rumours.

“If it was just one from each league, it wasn’t going to be us with Ham Rec doing so well.

“Ham Rec absolutely deserve to go up – no worries from our point of view on that one.

“Now we just dust ourselves off. We’ve already said we’ll be up for either league, so we’ll go again.”

But James was nevertheless proud of his team, who took 84 points in the league and reached two cup semi-finals last season.

He said: “We always wanted to go up on merit and to accumulate 84 points in a league campaign is fantastic.

“You take away the two semi-final cup defeats and we’ve had a brilliant season, there’s no doubt.

“It’s going to be really difficult to accumulate that amount of points next season, which we’ll have to do if we want to have a chance of challenging again.

“The stats, records and goals scored and conceded have been out of this world.

“We’ve got to enjoy our break and make sure we come back ready to do it all again next season.

“Anything less and we won’t achieve what we have this season. We’ve got really close but haven’t achieved anything.”

Ham Rec won three consecutive titles before earning promotion and James conceded it will not be straightforward for his side to go up.

“It takes time,” he warned. “You can’t just put a group of players together and expect to win a league.

“This is a massive stepping stone for us. We have to kick on, we’re going to keep the group together and we’ll add one or two players to freshen it up and improve us even more.

“We’ll be ready to challenge next season on all three fronts. This time, we’re desperate to win something because people don’t remember people that finish third and lose in semi-finals.

“As good a season as it is, we haven’t got anything to show for it. We’ve got to be even better next season, which I think we will be.”