REPORTS are rife that due to the recent spate of inclement weather, Abergavenny athletes of all shapes and sizes have been hanging up their trainers and calling it a day.

Dismal December has now sluggishly turned into joyless January, and barely a ball has been kicked in anger, a pass fumbled in fear, or a whistle sounded in impatience on the waterlogged pitches that have crushed many a hope and murdered many an ambition before it even has had an opportunity to raise it’s head and whimper, “I’m game!”

Yet there is a light at the end of this particularly dreary and desolate tunnel, and it’s called a 4G playing surface, sorry, a dry spell.

However many local sports fans, (recent estimates suggest as many as two), are asking if the damage to our area’s athletes has already been done, and have they prematurely retired from their chosen disciplines?

The evidence to suggest such a disturbing trend, can be viewed by all and sundry in the crawling expanse of the town’s Castle Meadows.

A tree strangely festooned with footwear has been the talk of Abergavenny’s river community for some time now.

“Why on earth are people hanging perfectly good trainers on the branches of an unsuspecting tree,” many dog walkers, bird watchers, roving ramblers, and conker collectors have asked in disbelief.”

Hanging trainers and shoes on trees is of course nothing new, in areas of deepest, darkest, rural England, the trend is though to act as a fertility ritual, where the plucky participants hope to double the number of pregnancies in the local towns and villages.

Of course, here in Wales we are much more civilized and don’t set any store by such superstitious frivolities.

Yet, the mystery remains - is Abergavenny’s legendary ’Trainer Tree’ simply the place where old footwear goes to die and unfulfilled dreams of sporting glory hang limply in the breeze, or does this fruity foliage disguise a deeper secret? Why not take a trip down Castle Meadows and decide for yourself.