In his weekly column MIKE BACON says the football season has to be completed, despite these difficult times.
It doesn’t surprise me that one of the most ‘Googled’ sentences right now is ‘good news on coronavirus’!
I mean let’s be honest, when all this is over I won’t care if I never hear the words Brexit or coronavirus ever again.
This terrible disease that has altered all our lives right now and taken thousands of others should perhaps change us forever – our attitudes, the way we approach life. But do you think it will?
Well, sadly history tells us probably not.
I wasn’t around at the end of the Second World War in 1945, but the celebrations that must have taken place must have been on a huge scale. I mean six years of rations, bombs, curfews, blackouts and more... And here we are in 2020 not impressed with a lockdown, that may be three weeks, three months. Certainly not three years.
Then again, it wasn’t that many years after the end of WW2 we had the Cuban Missile Crisis.
History can teach us so much...
... Not much to report on at Portman Road.
Although these words from Lee O’Neill, Town’s general manager of football operations are spot on.
“As a Club, we certainly support the notion that everything should be done where possible to complete this season. If that doesn’t happen, the ramifications will go on and on.”
You are not wrong there Lee. The season must finish.
The non-league game has been thrown into chaos and fury among some, with the news that Steps 3 to 7 have been declared ‘null and void’ this season (Steps one and two suspended ‘indefinitely’). There will be no promotion or relegation, even if a team is 15 points clear at the top or 15 points adrift at the bottom.
Already more than 60 non-league clubs have written to the FA to lobby for the ruling to be overturned.
If it is agreed, Step 3-7 clubs will begin the 2020/21 season in the same division they were in this season.
Can you imagine that happening in the professional game?
Liverpool don’t win the title. Bolton don’t get relegated. Bury could possibly rise from the ashes to take their place back in League One – their demise never existed!
For Town, at least it would save the blushes of admitting we didn’t make the play-offs in League One at our first attempt after relegation from the Championship.
Certainly, as in the non-league game, there will be plenty of winners and losers should the season not be finished.
... But where has all this left sport?
Well, I never thought I would look forward so much to watching live sport again. Any sport, anywhere, I don’t care. Golf, swimming, horse racing, cricket, basketball, ten-pin bowling, archery!
Like many of you, I miss football, big time.
It feels like the close season, but a close season with no ending.
At least in June you knew football was finished for a month or two, but will be returning. Time to do a few different things on a Saturday afternoon, like brush the cat, weed the garden or clean the inside of the car.
Now I’m plowing through boxsets at a rate of knots.
Bit old school me. I’m on series one, episode five of Only Fools And Horses. I’ve seen Fawlty Towers – and Poldark!
Apparently I need to ‘up my game’ on the boxset front, my boys say. Just as well more than one of us can access Netflix in our household.
Here’s some good sporting news.
Apparently a jogger has managed to run a half-marathon - while in self-isolation. Sam Hustler, 27, completed the 13-mile trek by completing 5,000 ‘laps’ of the 10ft balcony at his flat.
He had been due to complete Sunday’s London Landmarks Half Marathon, which would have seen him take in sights such as the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Shard.
Instead he took in his living room, chairs, TV and Alexa!...
MORE: ‘Sense of betrayal’... Jimmy Bullard’s time at Town
... I caught up with Milky at the local Premier on Sunday.
He had just come out with a Kings of Anglia magazine in his hand and was walking across the road.
“Alright Milky?”, I ventured.
“Hi Baco Foil. Yep, I’m ok thanks, don’t come too close,” he replied.
Well, we must have been about 30 feet apart. I felt I was going to have to start shouting.
“We’re fine Milky. We’re well more than two metres apart,” I said;
“That’s close enough,” he replied
“We’ll get arrested. I know the rules – there’s 20ft in a metre, we’re close enough. So stay back.”
Maths was never a strong point of Milky’s.
I shouted goodbye and walked on.
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