Football's Shutdown across the Pyramid goes Viral

Friday 13th, a date synonymous with bad luck, lived up to its name when the Coronavirus successfully put football into self-isolation. By Monday, March 16th, the patient was finally put out of its misery as all forms of football were suspended until further notice.

Initial indications that the National League, where Yeovil Town currently play their football, intended to continue on Friday, raised the prospect that matches further down the pyramid would be unaffected by the decision of the Premier League, English Football League and the FA to suspend professional football until April 3rd. Yet this left many in the game uneasy as to the consequences of seemingly flying in the face of such a high-profile decision to suspend the professional Leagues.

When the FA’s guidance came, it initially handed the responsibility for continuing competitive matches back to the Leagues, suggesting they make their “own individual decision based on (the) local situation and the availability of players and officials”. The FA statement went on to clarify that the Governing body “would fully respect and support any leagues … or teams that wish to postpone fixtures in light of the Covid-19 virus” and that the “decision to postpone all professional football in England has been taken with the integrity of the competitions in mind, considering the availability of players, staff and facilities.”

However, for many non-league fans this raised more questions than answers. Why would the FA, with all its resources, leave such a high-profile decision in the hands of amateur football? At the time the decision was taken, the Government had not banned large scale public gatherings and whilst a number of other significant sporting events took the decision not to go ahead, popular visitor attractions, such as Legoland Windsor, remained open.

To postpone or not to postpone that was the question and with the seconds ticking away on Friday afternoon and Saturdays matches looming large on the horizon, Clubs and fans were eager for the grassroots leagues to make their decisions as to whether to proceed. The Toolstation Western League followed the lead of their namesake in the Northern Counties East, the South West Peninsular, Hellenic and Southern League in suspending their match day programme, whilst the Wessex League chose to follow the lead of the National League and press on.

So was the decision to suspend non-league football an over-reaction, based on the advice being presented by Government at the time, or an inevitable consequence of the decision to follow the lead of the professional game?

Intuitively, the decision appears to have been one based on public safety, yet the FA’s joint statement clearly explained that it had “been taken due to the increasing numbers of clubs taking steps to isolate their players and staff because of the COVID-19 virus”. Writing in his column in the Sunday Times, the former England captain, Wayne Rooney, asked “Why did we wait until Friday? Why did it take Mikel Arteta [Arsenal manager] to get ill for the game in England to do the right thing?”. If the decision to suspend professional football was taken in the best interest of player safety, then why would the advice to non-league footballers be any different to that of their professional brethren?

The real question for Western League fans is how the story of the 2019/20 season will end. Given the terrible weather delays experienced over the past few months, even the shortest of suspensions couldn’t realistically see the League season end on April 25th, as had originally been planned. Indeed, on February 25th the Western League approached the Football Association requesting an extension to the current season. In their response, the FA’s Leagues Committee denied the request, stating their expectation that all Step 5/6 games are to be completed by 25 April, a decision that appears to have been predicated on the ‘pure pyramid’ restructuring programme scheduled to be set out on May 12th.

In the face of a global pandemic, you’d like to think that the administrative niceties of the Football Associations Leagues Committee might pail into insignificance, but football is a funny old game! To be fair, the FA did say that their position “is under constant review” in light of the Coronavirus crisis, a fact borne out by the events of last Friday.

It sounds trite to say that this situation is under constant review, but the challenge with writing an article for a weekly newspaper at this moment in time is that no sooner has the story been written, it becomes out of date. So what will happen to the story of this season? Will it finish as it is today, will it be reconciled on a points per game basis or will it be stricken from the record all together? Much of the speculation is based on the relationship between this season and the next, the 2020/21 campaign.

Given that the League is currently suspended, it is reasonable to ask how long this current suspension could last before it impacts on the close season, pre-season and the start of next season. Yet next season hasn’t started yet, so if any season should be stricken from the record shouldn’t it be that one? Shouldn’t the teams playing for promotion, like Sherborne Town, or for the chance to play at Wembley in the Final of the FA Vase, like Bitton, be given the chance to see that fight through to the end?

It is highly likely that football’s pure pyramid will provide the final answer to all these questions, what happens at the top of our national game will cascade from the English Premier League to the Toolstation Premier League, but these are unprecedented times and all any of us can do is wait and see.