Shrewsbury Town Football Club’s youth set-up has become the latest victim of the credit crunch after its major sponsor pulled out of a deal because of the crisis in the housing market.

The club and homebuilder Shropshire Homes signed a three-year deal last season covering the youth side and the Centre of Excellence.

But the developer has decided to exercise a get-out clause because of the state of the housing market.

Shrewsbury Town’s head of youth, Nigel Vaughan, said the news had come as a big blow and he was now looking for a new sponsor.

He said: “Howard Thorne at Shropshire Homes has been absolutely superb with his sponsorship of the youth.

“He came in and explained the situation to us the other day and has had to withdraw his sponsorship, which isn’t a problem at all.

“We signed a great three-year deal with Shropshire Homes to sponsor the youth and Centre of Excellence all the way down to the U9s but there was a clause that Howard has used because of the current housing market.

“At this moment we haven’t got a sponsor for the Centre of Excellence and the youth but we will be doing everything in our powers to get companies to put money into the sponsorship.”

Mr Thorne, managing director of Shropshire Homes, said: “Obviously the market is slow and we are having to unfortunately lay off some of our site staff and it didn’t seem appropriate to be sponsoring in those circumstances but we are very likely to recommence sponsorship some time in the future.”