LEDBURY Town have confirmed the club will close due to rising costs.

The troubled club have been apart of the town since 1893 and played at their New Street home for 81 years.

The first team pulled out of the West Midlands Regional League earlier this season and the club say they have now been left with little choice but to close it.

"After being established in the town since 1893 and hosting football at New Street since 1934 when the current ground was donated to the people of Ledbury by local businessman Lord Biddulph, it is with great sadness this week that the current Chairman of Ledbury Town Football Club Mr. Colin Brandt has to advise the town that the club is having to close," said a statement.

"Despite many efforts throughout to keep expenditure such as rent from rising, other costs which have been out of the club’s direct control have risen, and with decreasing income over recent months exacerbated by the forced withdrawal of the club’s first team from the West Midlands Regional League due to a number of difficult circumstances both on and off the pitch, the club is left with no other option but to close before it experiences even greater difficulties.

"As in the past, stalwart and dedicated members of the club have invested their own money in a generous and kind-hearted attempt to keep the club afloat, with no expectation of any significant improvement in its financial position. Therefore, it is in the club’s best interests to protect the officers from any potential claim for trading beyond the club’s financial limits.

"It should also be made clear that the club has been put under no pressure from landowners Property Solutions (Ledbury) Ltd over the course of its financial struggles, and in a separate agreement, the company has come to an arrangement with the club to allow the ground’s football pitch and changing rooms to be used in order for the club’s current two footballing sides, Ledbury Town Reserves and Ledbury Colts, to complete all remaining league and cup fixtures for the current 2014/15 season of football.

"The club trusts that the local community will agree with its decision, and will allow it to complete the process of closure with dignity.

"All at Ledbury Town Football Club would also like to extend a huge thank you to everyone past and present who have supported its cause of providing football in Ledbury over the course of the last 120 years."