New Hamilton Parish Workmen’s club chairman Kyle Wade has boldly declared that “we will have a team in the First Division next season”.

The announcement comes after Wade, who was elected the week before the Bermuda Football Association removed Hot Peppers from competition for failing to fulfil their fixtures, revealed that a revival of the senior football programme was under way.

He said he expects the Crawl Hill club will return to the First Division at the start of next season.

“We are starting from the bottom and are starting clean,” Wade said.

“We’re going to build off what we’ve got and going forward you're going to see a whole new Hamilton Parish.

“Next season we will have a team and the new executive has been sitting down and talking with the BFA to get everything sorted out.

“We have been working hand in hand with them so everything is a go right now and Hamilton Parish will have a team in that First Division next season.

“I’m building from the ground up and we have something that works. I’m building my plan, building my team back up, building my whole club and community. I’m getting everybody together and Parish is going to rise where it was.”

Parish were expelled from the First Division by the Bermuda Football Association for the remainder of the season in November for forfeiting three league matches, a violation of competition rules, as the loss of 20 squad members and coach Sergio Goater last summer took a heavy toll.

In accordance with section 7 of the General Rules for Divisional Competitions — Failure to Play and Abandonment — a team that defaults three matches within a season will be prohibited from participating in any additional competitions related to that division for the remainder of the season.

Wade said the club’s football team, who won the Dudley Eve Trophy but were also relegated from the Premier Division last season, had a “devastating” impact on the entire Hamilton Parish community.

“It's never good to see a community take a hit like that, especially the way we were rising,” Wade said.

“We were on a good move. We were doing good in the Premier Division and then all of a sudden a couple of things went wrong and the ship just fell apart. It was devastating but we will be back.”