Oxford game off

[Sir Rebel1965]

Game off against Oxford due to - COVID.

 

As I have said before the season should be suspended as it is putting players/ manages/club staff/officials and their families at an un-needed risk.

[Sir Rebel1965]

Just checked and currently that is 7/10 70% of the Southern League off - there is a message in that surley?

[Reading Rebel]

I'd say the game itself being called off certainly suits us with losing Matt Lench and our list of players only just coming back from injury.

As the games been called off at the last minute presumably it's only symptoms at this stage and not positive tests.

Really not sure on the rules anymore. Does that mean those with symptoms have to get a test and until those tests come back either positive of negative both clubs have to isolate? 

If all non league clubs had to do mandatory testing imo there would hardly be any games being played at any level.

[Curtis]

The message is that the vast majority of people under the age of 30 know that they aren’t going to die if they catch COVID-19, are unlikely to be seriously ill, might have a loss of smell & taste for a few days, and are most likely to be asymptomatic.

So where there are two squads of 20 players, plus managers and officials, out of 50 people, when they are all tested, there is nearly always going to be at least one testing positive. And there will be for a fair while yet, even when the 25 million people over the age of 50 or vulnerable have been vaccinated.

But the Club have already received £90k from the Lottery Fund for October, November, & December (to effectively compensate them for lost revenue from 5 unattended home games), and are likely to be given another £90k for the next three months.

It is decision time though, do the Club take more money & continue with the season, or do they stop, possibly accept relegation, and possibly be asked to hand back the £90k they received.

 

 

[Reading Rebel]

1 hour ago, Curtis said:

The message is that the vast majority of people under the age of 30 know that they aren’t going to die if they catch COVID-19, are unlikely to be seriously ill, might have a loss of smell & taste for a few days, and are most likely to be asymptomatic.

So where there are two squads of 20 players, plus managers and officials, out of 50 people, when they are all tested, there is nearly always going to be at least one testing positive. And there will be for a fair while yet, even when the 25 million people over the age of 50 or vulnerable have been vaccinated.

But the Club have already received £90k from the Lottery Fund for October, November, & December (to effectively compensate them for lost revenue from 5 unattended home games), and are likely to be given another £90k for the next three months.

It is decision time though, do the Club take more money & continue with the season, or do they stop, possibly accept relegation, and possibly be asked to hand back the £90k they received.

 

 

I don't think it's even a consideration that the club should stop playing and just accept relegation and at the same time forfeit the 90k received.

 

[Richie Baker]

All of a sudden it seems very easy for a club to get a game postponed.It seems all you have to do is claim a player has symptoms and the game is off.This has become an absolute joke.You might as well just scrap this season!!!

[Richie Baker]

It also seems to be a major problem in the NLS.Looking on flashscores no other league has postponed so many games

 

[Sir Rebel1965]

Most of the NLS teams play in Tier 4 areas, and you dont need to scrap the season, just suspend it.

[Curtis]

The Premier League have had seven positive tests in the week ending 20th December (over 100 recorded this season) & not one of the Premier League fixtures was postponed.

Players or staff who have tested positive isolate for 10 days.

[HEAVY TRUCKER]

this season seems to be running on a wing and a prayer, if all the clubs in a division agreed to postpone  / scrap the season what could the authorative bodies morally do, they have to postpone the season its the only morally right thing to do

[Reading Rebel]

As we've said before it's open to abuse if a club wants a game to be called off but until there's mandatory testing like in the premiership I'm not sure there's a lot that can be done.

Not sure if it's relevant to the situation but according to Marc White at Dorking the majority of clubs in the NLS would like the season scrapped.

[Curtis]

After insisting on all the National League being treated the same regarding play-offs, all are likely to be treated the same for the remainder of this season.

And National League Premier clubs seem keen to get on with the season.

Games that look like they are on in the south of England today:-

Aldershot v Woking, Maidenhead v Wealdstone, Eastleigh v Weymouth, Torquay v Yeovil, & Dover v Dagenham.

 

[Irishadrian]

5 hours ago, Richie Baker said:

All of a sudden it seems very easy for a club to get a game postponed.It seems all you have to do is claim a player has symptoms and the game is off.This has become an absolute joke.You might as well just scrap this season!!!

Yes  All a club who doesn't  fancy a game for example with a lot of injuries just needs to claim symptoms to postpone a game or any individual player who'd  rather spend Xmas with family and friends

[Irishadrian]

It certainly seems odd that 10/11 Conference North games were played but just 2/10 Conference South games

[Reading Rebel]

42 minutes ago, Irishadrian said:

It certainly seems odd that 10/11 Conference North games were played but just 2/10 Conference South games

Not if you consider all of the South East of England is in Tier 4 and affected by the mutant variant of the virus.

[Irishadrian]

RR A lot of the area you refer to only entered tier 4 today and the whole point of the tier 4 rules is to make those areas safer!

[Curtis]

RR,

So what would be your explanation for how 5 National Premier League clubs in the south of England managed to stage matches against 5 opponents also based in the south of England?

Luck? Greater desire to stage matches? Players following stricter rules? Or something else?

[Reading Rebel]

Maybe just luck or more likely none of the players were tested or they just wanted to play the games.

[Neil Baker]

Let’s be honest games are called off if a player even develops symptoms which at this stage of the year when normal flu is also around are quite likely.

Some clubs will just ignore them because they believe that football is more important than health and want to play, however there are a high number of clubs who feel that this is not right, and will report the conditions to the league and PHE I.e Oxford having someone whose wife got a positive test result on Xmas Day, but that person feeling fine.

Somebody mentioned the premier league and they have positive results but still play, the difference is for them not to play costs them millions of pounds, they are also regularly tested and have huge squads, so can differentiate who has it and who doesn’t (however we still had a case of Newcastle having a game cancelled), and a few in the championship  yesterday and about 5 in league one.

We play at national league south, yes we have been given a grant to get going, and we were all happy to get going, as let’s be honest at that point we were calling for fans to be allowed in, as infections were incredibly low country wide, especially down here, and less restrictions (and certainly no tiers) what we then noticed was as infections started to increase up north the National League north and NP teams up north were the ones having lots of games called off.

This has swung to the south but with apparently a more transmissible infection and that means it is affecting so many more people.

I can tell you now that not all people follow rules, whether they play for Slough Oxford, Solihull or Man United, and that is the difficulty.

My views before we had even kicked a ball was that it should not have got started (and was discussed with a number of managers), and the reason was it did not take a genius to recognise that this had not gone away and would only get worse once we got to flu season, which has proved right, but also that clubs could manipulate the system throughout with symptoms etc, and this would cause huge disruption.

The fact that fans are not allowed in makes it just like we are ticking boxes, and for me that is not football, my view on the matter is it should be currently suspended until things settle down, I do not think it is morally correct that we are bringing big groups of people together where habits are hard to change meaning plenty of contact (just look at any goal still) without any form of testing, and unless testing is provided by the league it just can’t go ahead due to the costs involved of doing this every week.

Clubs were happy to pay for testing 3/4 weeks for the play offs, in a time where infections were so much lower and we as a country had no restrictions, but to do it for a full season it is not really possible, and the National League in my opinion knew this, hence why they dropped the need for it.

It all falls back to the elite argument, and people will say everyone argued for it, what we argued for was the injustice at the time that we all felt the National League were trying to pull a fast one to keep three teams up and not send anyone down via PPG, and at the time the government definition of an elite footballer (not club) was someone who derives AN income from the sport, and at the time we argued that they all did, and many players in leagues below did.

For me we are not elite football, and not an elite club, that is probably for the top two tiers of football, and they are the clubs who can provide all the testing and safety needed, due to the millions of pounds they get from TV money etc.

What I would say is as a club we have put as many safety features in as possible and worked our socks off to try and make it a safe environment along with SBC, however as I mention it does not change players habits, and that is the main problem.

I know how we feel as a club at the moment, and I know there are plenty of clubs who also agree, however I feel that unless the government tell the NL to stop we will just have to continue as the NL actually only care about finishing their competition, and the health and safety of those involved in their competition and their families is not a major factor IMO.

We are mid pandemic at a time where infections are similar to April time this year where no football was being played.

Strange and tough times for all industries and we are no different, anyway on a positive note hope everyone has enjoyed their last couple of days, and I hope to see everyone back at the club when this all settles down again.

[Richie Baker]

Reading into Neil's post it would seem a fair number of NLS clubs do not want to play and will just keep getting games postponed in the hope the NL will suspend/scrap the season.Im guessing if clubs got together and refused to play the NL would want their £90,000 back