St Leonards director Andy Thomson has hit back at suggestions that Hastings is not big enough for two teams.

Hastings United manager George Wakeling told us last week that crisis-hit Saints should merge with his club for "the good of football in the town".

Saints have resigned from the Dr Martens League because of financial problems and will play in the County League next season, but Thomson has ruled out merging with the next door neighbours.

He said: "We are going absolutely nowhere and if he (Wakeling) thinks we are just going to pack our bags at the first sign of trouble he has got another think coming.

"We have not even thought about a merger. Why should we? We are a massive club in Sussex, you just have to look at our ground to see that and I resent anyone telling us how to run it.

"He should stop deflecting attention onto our club and concentrate on sorting out his own problems. After all, they are in danger of relegation themselves."

Thomson refuted suggestions about lack of ambition at The Firs and is confident Saints will come back bigger and stronger after a spell in the County League.

He said: "We took a brave decision to go down and it was the right decision because we couldn't carry on financially. But it is not so bad we can't recover.

"Believe me, about 75 per cent of clubs in our league are in worse positions than ourselves.

"As for going into the County League, we are quite happy about it because it is a very good standard with some big clubs.

"We are only going back one league in order to build up again and we don't expect to be there long because we intend to finish in the top two or three next year and come straight back up."