Chris Madden has resigned as president of the Solly Sports Central Yorkshire League.

Madden, who replaced John Tomlinson early last year, has fears for the future of the league if their merger with the Leeds-West Riding League does not go through later this year.

He said: “I would hope that the merger will be successful and that we can introduce some new clubs to the league and that we can grow.

“But I am a little bit disillusioned. There is still a bit of reluctance within our league committee to this merger.”

When asked what his legacy would be over his 18-month reign, Madden said: “Although we have only got one or two new umpires, we have raised the profile of the problem of a lack of umpires.

“Clubs may still say they haven’t got any more umpires but they cannot say now that they aren’t aware of the scale of the problem.

“Hopefully we can send umpires on training courses from clubs and, while some clubs have been very supportive, others don’t seem to understand – but that is the nature of clubs.”

Madden added: “I do worry about the future of club cricket.

“We seem to be losing clubs, such as Wakefield City last week, and not getting any in.

“We have 26 clubs at the moment and are close to my nightmare scenario of going below 24.”