SHOLING boss Dave Diaper says it's "bang out of order" that the Southern Football League did not own up to a ground grading oversight when telling the world that the Boatmen resigned from Division One South & West.

League chairman Ken Turner set the cat among the pigeons this week when he wrote on the SFL website: “For avoidance of doubt: Contrary to local press reports, Sholing tendered their resignation from the League and were not relegated from Division One South & West for failing to complete the work required to attain the necessary grading following their promotion.”

Sholing made no mention of having resigned when, in mid-May, they issued a statement saying the FA had informed them they had been “relegated from Step 4 (Southern League S&W) to Step 5 (Wessex) due to ground grading issues.”

The Boatmen did in fact submit their resignation in March but, says Diaper, it was a ground grading error that brought matters to a head.

Having had the Silverlake Arena passed for Southern League football towards the end of their Sydenhams Premier/FA Vase double-winning season of 2013/14, Sholing were belatedly informed last October that they needed separate toilets for clubhouse users – something not picked up at the initial inspection.

As a short-term solution, Sholing hired a portable toilet block for £120 a week plus costly emptying charges – an expense they had not budgeted for – to get them through the rest of the season.

But they couldn’t continue flushing money down the pan and opted to resign from the Southern League before the March 31 deadline rather than risk a fine further down the line.

Diaper said: “We were never going to be able to comply with the ground grading for this season. If we hadn’t resigned by March 31, we’d have been fined.

“The Southern League say we weren’t relegated on ground grading, so are they saying that if we didn’t put in the toilet block for next season we’d still be allowed to play in that league?

“We didn’t announce we’d resigned because we weren’t asked. We wrote a private letter to the FA in March, so why come out publicly and say it before the season had finished?

“Whatever the Southern League might say, this all comes back to that first ground grading visit.

“I don’t care if they say we should have checked the grading regulations. When you get an official inspection you expect them to go through things thoroughly and tick all the boxes.

“But the person they sent out passed us when we should have failed. If we’d known that at the first inspection, we’d never have gone into the Southern League.”

It’s not the first time Sholing have resigned from the South & West. They did so two years ago and then, amid much criticism from Wessex clubs, went straight back up after winning the Vase/Wessex League.

The SWL constitution – with Sholing placed in the Premier Division along with phoenix club Salisbury - is due to be ratified at Tuesday's league AGM.