Lymington & Milton have withdrawn their application for Southern League football for the third successive season.

While Jewson Wessex top dogs Eastleigh and Gosport Borough have already had their preliminary ground inspections done for entry into the Dr Martens League, the Linnets have again had to knock their promotion plans on the head for financial reasons.

Last year the New Forest club revealed they were facing a shortfall of about £40,000 to survive in the Southern League and, back in March 2000, they were forced to postpone their DML application because of a wrangle with the town council over erecting a mandatory 8ft perimeter fence around their Fawcett's Field home.

Barely three months ago, Linnets chairman Charlie Hewlett announced that the Linnets were in their best financial shape for five years and, despite this latest setback, he insists that has not changed.

The problem this time concerns an "unsecured financial arrangement" which was in place before Hewlett was at the club.

"We thought it was being serviced but it was unsecured. But we now have people who have agreed to stand as guarantors to this arrangement," he explained.

"It's not going to hurt the club, but I wasn't prepared to deal with that and run the risk of getting into financial trouble in the Southern League at the same time."

Although Hewlett had offered to personally fund estimated coach travel costs of £10,000 for Southern League football next season, the playing side would have been a big drain on the budget.

He said: "From the clubs I've spoken to, all the talk is of it costing £115,000 to £130,000 to run a side in the Dr Martens League.

"Gareth Keeping, who left us earlier this season, is earning four times as much with Newport IoW than he was getting here and that's an awful lot of money for a 19-year-old.

"Some of our boys are on £40 a week and they're not going to leave home early in the afternoon to go somewhere like King's Lynn without having their money made up somehow.

"It's a big difference from the Wessex League."

Hewlett, who is in his first season as chairman at Fawcett's Field, says he is "big enough and ugly enough" to do what's right for the club, but he appreciates it must be galling for player-boss Graham Kemp, who's built his squad with Dr Martens football in mind.

The chairman, though, refutes as "nonsense" any suggestion that Kemp has had his current budget slashed and is under orders to get rid of players.

He said: "There is refinancing going on but there's no truth in these rumours that Graham has got to offload players.

"It must be disappointing for him that we've withdrawn our application because it's happened to him before - but then we mustn't forget that promotion also depends on a top two finish and, at the moment, Eastleigh and Gosport are up there.

"They'd look at us and say it doesn't matter what Lymington do, because they're not going up - we are!

"If we don't finish in the top two, then, you could argue that what we're doing now is justified."