WESTBURY United have urged the Toolstation League to order a replay of their abandoned First Division clash at Chard Town on September 16.

The leaders, managed by co-bosses Joe and Neil Kirkpatrick, were trailing 4-2 amid heavy rain saturated conditions at Denning Sports Field when the referee abandoned the match in the 89th minute.

Currently, the result does not stand with an FA hearing required to determine whether Chard will keep hold of the three points and end Westbury's unbeaten start to the season, despite the match being so close to a natural conclusion.

But the Meadow Lane club, who progressed past the second qualifying round stage with a 5-2 extra-time win over Christchurch on Saturday, believe a replay should be ordered, claiming the match was still very much in the balance when it was halted.

A club statement said: "Westbury United believe that they will be subject to a sporting disadvantage if their match against Chard, which was abandoned due to heavy rain, isn’t replayed.

"The referee stated that there was still two minutes of normal time to play and at least four minutes of added time.

"Even though Westbury were trailing 4-2, they were well on top of the game and given their scintillating start to the season, it would not have surprised anyone if Westbury scored the two goals to draw level or even three to take all the points in the remaining six minutes of play.

"The conditions had deteriorated constantly through the second half, so even though it took until two minutes before the 90 for the referee to decide to abandon the game, he could quite easily have stopped it 10-15 minutes earlier as the standing water on the pitch made it so the ball would not roll and every tackle could have resulted in a serious injury, due to players being unable to control themselves due to the surface conditions.

"It is no secret that we have ambitions to compete for the league title and promotion this season and it will be a big disadvantage if we don’t get the chance to compete for a full 90 minutes, plus the added on time that the referee decides to add during the match.

"There are some big teams who have their eyes on the top prize and come the end of the season there could be five or six in the running to win the league.

"It could come down to goal difference, therefore the negative two goals could be regarded as giving an extra point to a rival if things are tight at the end of the season.''

Club secretary Greg Coulson added: "All we can do is sit and wait for the outcome of the Toolstation Western League meeting.

"We’re hoping that they view this abandonment in the same way that they viewed the abandoned match between Bradford (Town) and Winterbourne in 2014.

"Bradford were 6-0 up and Winterbourne were down to 10 men when the match was abandoned due to fog. The league decided that they should replay the match.

"At the end of the day, no one can say for certain what the outcome of the match would have been. No one is to blame, the referee did the right thing, putting the players safety first.

"We just hope that we don’t have this uncertainty of what would have happened in the last six minutes hanging over our heads for the rest of the season.''

Meanwhile Westbury have been drawn at home to United Services Portsmouth in the first round proper of the FA Vase on October 21.