DORCHESTER Sports will re-apply for promotion to Step 6 for the 2022/23 season after their "disappointing" snub earlier this week.

Sports were hopeful of promotion to Wessex Division One after applying to the FA to make the jump in standard during the planned restructure of non-League football.

Gillingham Town were the only Dorset side awarded promotion, the Gills rising into Western League Division One.

Hamworthy Rec, Dorset Premier League (DPL) champions for the past two seasons, were a surprising omission from the list of 107 clubs granted promotion.

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Speaking to Echosport, Sports' boss Ashley James admitted his side's outcome was "no real surprise" given Rec's application had also failed.

He said: "It's obviously disappointing. No-one really knew how they were going to do it or how many were going to go up.

"If you see Hamworthy Recreation not getting in, there's no real surprise we're not in.

"From the Dorset Premier League, they deserve to go up. If they don't, we're going to be slightly behind them.

"We'll dust ourselves down and get ready for a full season."

Asked if the rejection had affected Sports' plans for the 2021/22 campaign, James said: "We couldn't really make any plans until we found out.

"We'd spoken about being in both leagues. Nothing's changed too much. The starting dates are pretty similar.

"We're going to start pre-season training at the same time and I believe our squad was going to stay together, regardless of the league we're in.

"We've spoken to a couple of players already, hopefully we can add one or two.

"We'll apply again next year and hopefully go up on merit."

Yesterday, the DPL confirmed Corfe Castle would be readmitted to the division after their hibernation due to Covid-19.

Five teams have also applied for promotion to the DPL (Step 7) and league officials will select two clubs from the list, bringing the total to 18.