Players and staff at Thetford Town have been handed a stark wake-up call - after failing to put together a team for their Thurlow Nunn Premier Division trip to Brightlingsea Regent.

The match was postponed because Thetford weren't able to put together a starting XI for Saturday's trip to Essex because of injuries, player unavailability and a sickness bug.

A club meeting was held on Monday night before some stern words were dished out at a team meeting at training on Tuesday night.

Now Thetford boss Mark Scott has set about trying to reverse the club's fortunes.

'That hasn't happened before at this level for us, so it was a hard one to take as a club,' Scott said of the postponement.

'Let's be frank, things are not going too well and some players need to have a good, hard look at themselves and ask if they are really giving 100 per cent.

'If they are not going to listen to what we are telling them then the lads who are attending training, or the reserve or young players, can come in instead of them.

'We probably still need three or four players to come in but I'm sure we build from here and get out of the problems that we are in.

'It's going to take an awful lot and maybe one or two will need to come out of the team and one or two will need to come in and do a job, that's the situation we have got to address as a squad.'

The postponement has prompted the club to register some of its reserve squad, formed this summer to play in division six of the Anglian Combination, on first-team forms.

Scott continued: 'We are trying to rebuild and have probably given ourselves a bit of a problem and, no disrespect intended to our players in the reserves, but playing in division six of the Anglian Combination does not make you good enough to play in the Thurlow Nunn league.

'So we need to improve that and encourage better players to join us and get better players coming through for the two teams.

'We have said to the reserve players that they are probably not going to get an opportunity to step up to this level regularly, but if the situation did come up, then they could be there, as long as they are training and playing well, they know they could have a try at this level.'

Scott is now in his fifth season in charge at Mundford Road. Last season, the club's first following promotion from division one, Scott's side struggled and finished 19th with just six wins from 38 matches.

They are due to host Godmanchester Rovers for a 3pm kick-off on Saturday, the team that pipped them to the division one title on goal difference, and Scott is hoping to see a reaction from his team.

'They beat us twice that year and we don't have a great record against them, so there is no better game for us this week from my point of view, for the players to show me a reaction,' Scott added.

'We fought long and hard to get the club to this level of football and I for one am not prepared to throw that away because, believe you me, if you get relegated it takes an awful lot to get back in.

'It took the club 21 years to get there and I'm not really up for going through all that.'