King’s Lynn Town fans have been urged not to travel to Stowmarket on Saturday for the Linnets’ first friendly game of the summer.

Stowmarket are allowed only 150 fans inside their ground – which has a capacity of around 2,000 – because of coronavirus restrictions.

However, Stowmarket had an average home attendance of more than 300 in the curtailed 2019-20 season, in which they topped the Thurlow Nunn Premier Division without losing a game.

Stowmarket secretary David Walker informed the Linnets of their decision on Friday morning, saying: “As it stands we will only be allowed 150 fans into the ground. As I know you have tremendous support and with your achievements of promotion, we at Stowmarket realise you could send the 150 fans yourself! With this in mind we as a committee have looked at the situation and we advise King’s Lynn fan not to travel to Stowmarket.

“I appreciate that this is not ideal, and under normal circumstances we would love to see as many fans as possible, but under the current guidelines we feel this is our only option.

“Sorry if this causes any inconvenience or upset to your fans but we have to comply with the guidelines.”

Lynn, on their official web site, said: “We have been asked by Stowmarket Town to advise our supporters NOT to travel to the game on Saturday. Despite the restrictions being lifted to allow football supporters back into grounds at step 3 level and below a maximum of 150 supporters has been set to cover all games at present and Stowmarket wish to allow their own supporters the chance to be able to watch their own team in action at their home ground.

“We respect their decision and so we advise you do not travel to Saturday’s fixture. We thank you all for your co-operation in this matter.”