LATE afternoon the club received a phonecall from the FAW informing us that striker Chris Llewellyn had been called up to the senior Wales squad for next week's European Championship qualifiers with both Germany (8 Sept) and Slovakia (12 Sept).
This is great news for the player and another compliment for the club, but does bring to six the number of players called up for international duty - as well as a further one on standby.
We now have three involved with John Toshack's party and another three players away with U21 internationals on Friday, 7 September.
Chris joins Steve Evans and Mark Jones for the Euro 2008 games, while Neil Taylor and Mike Williams will be heading to France with Brian Flynn's U21s and Mike Carvill will be the Northern Ireland U21s to face both Germany and Luxembourg.
While manager Brian Carey had been contemplating playing on in our domestic fixtures against Macclesfield Town (JPT) and Rochdale, this latest lose of Chris from his squad means we will now reluctantly apply to The Football League for a postponement of our games during this international period.
It is likely that the Johnstone's Paint Trophy tie with Macclesfield Town will be put back two weeks to Tuesday, 18 September - 7.15pm.
"To lose two fixtures so early in the season is disappointing, but now beyond our control," said Brian.
"I had been hoping to play at least one of them, if not both, but even allowing for the squad we have, this latest call-up is starting to stretch us with four left sided players now missing.
"The rules allow us to request a postponement if three players are called up, so we have done our best to play on, but with six now away with Wales and Northern Ireland, plus any injuries that might come our way, we would be leaving ourselves short in several departments.
"Good luck to the lads called up, it's a great honour for them and I hope they come back with as much success as they enjoyed last week."
As soon as we have news of a new date for the Rochdale game, then you will publish it here first.
