Irvine Ladies Hockey Club's hopes of a happy homecoming have been wrecked after they were banned from playing league matches on their new pitch.
The club, who have played out of Troon in recent years, were re-allocated the main grass pitch at Irvine Sports Club in June - a decision that left amateur football team Irvine AFC homeless just weeks before the start of their season.
But now they've been informed they are not allowed to play competitive games on the surface with hockey chiefs imposing an artificial grass-only rule for league fixtures.
That means the club is now set for a season of friendlies - just weeks after Irvine captain Megan Nish expressed her delight at 'coming home.'
The club - who it is understood are also struggling for players - revealed the news in a statement on Facebook this afternoon:
It states: "We received the upsetting news from our district that we will be unable to play our home games on grass for this upcoming season.
"This means that while we can train on our new pitch we can't actually host any league matches on it.
"Unfortunately the cost of installing astro and the fencing required around it is too high for us to afford at the minute.
"After much consideration and weighing up the financial costs of alternatives we as a team have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the league for this season and focus instead on rebuilding the club, training hard and recruiting more players.
"We still intend on keeping our fixtures for the year and playing them as frendlies instead (of which the home games can still be played at the sports club on grass).
"Stay tuned for upcoming event info and match fixtures and we hope to still see you come along and support our wee team as we take on this new chapter for the club."
Ayrshire Live reported in June how the board of Irvine Sports Club voted to facilitate the return of the hockey club to play their matches on the main grass pitch at Marress playing fields for the first time since the 1990s.
The pitch had been used for football in the intervening decades – primarily by the now defunct Clark Drive Amateurs – and most recently by Irvine AFC who rented the park on a pay-to-play basiss from 2017 up until August.
But the amateur side were told there was no room for them at the facility, leaving them without a home for the start of the football season. They have since found a new base at Kilwinning football academy.
Responding to today's development, Irvine AFC manager Keith Graham said: "Whilst we don't like to see any team struggling, we find it extremely strange that a well established club has been replaced by one who have been struggling for a while now to field a team for a while."
Irvine Sports Club secretary Andy Rennie said the news had come as a surprise but vowed to stand by the hockey club.
He said: "It's something that's only really came to light in the last seven to 10 days.
"It's hugely disappointing but we've always had a longer term plan is to re-generate hockey at the sports club and we will continue on that path.
"The hockey club is a huge part of our history and we want to support them as they look to build things going forward, both with the first team and a junior section.
"As someone who has been heavily invovled in minority sports for many years, I'm very aware that these things go in cycles.
"I'm absolutely confident that in time the hockey club will come back stronger and as I say, we will be there to support them."
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