It's get your calculators out time in the Mid Sussex League.

Clubs voted for action to be taken to cure the fixtures backlog and have bizarrely opted for one of the most confusing systems of deciding the ten divisions.

Each division will be split into two. Teams will play each other home and away and the two group winners and basement sides will play-off to determine the championship and wooden spoon positions.

Sounds simple enough doesn't it?

But to make it fair to teams that have started well, the league has come up with a calculation which will determine how many points a team will start with in their new mini division.

League secretary Laurie Parsons explained the complicated method that will be carried out by fixtures guru Roger Peters.

He said: "We will calculate each team's points and divide it by the number of games they've played to work out their points average. Then in descending order on averages, every other team will be put in one group, while the others will form the second group. That way there will be a mixed standard of teams.

"Then once placed in a group, each team's average will be multiplied by three and then rounded to the nearest number and that will work out how many points a team in the group starts on."

Once these calculations are made, it's back to a simple league system. That is until the end of the season. Because a one-off match between the group winners will determine the championship.

Wisdom Sports, who are leading the Premier Division, would start with six points, while Lindfield, a point behind having played two games less, will begin with eight points.

Sports secretary Brian Menzies said: "The league has no choice and this was probably the fairest solution they could come up with.

"We're just glad that our good work so far this season hasn't been completely undone. We still have an advantage in our group, although it's never ideal to settle a league title on a one-off final. But we would've struggled to play all our fixtures if nothing was done to solve the crisis."

Wisdom Sports, who have 14 matches left, will still have to play ten games. Whereas Clayton, who have 17 matches to play, will have seven fixtures less.

But Parsons insists that the league cannot come up with a better solution.

He said: "Some might say a championship shouldn't be decided by a one-off match, but the adverse weather has meant we've had to come up with something. This is the best we could manage under the circumstances and only four clubs were against it at the meeting."

All league games this weekend have been called off and cup competitions will continue where spaces allow.