Government’s muddled thinking & the mothballing of proud Merthyr could just be the start of football’s collapse
EVEN when socially distanced, you could see the pain on the faces of everyone at the club.
You could feel the despair in the community, and you feared for the long winter months ahead.
Earlier this week I visited Merthyr Town, who have ‘ mothballed’ their 2020- 21 campaign and taken the agonising decision to suspend playing until next season – because they simply cannot afford to carry on in the current climate.
And they will not be the last club who are brought to their knees by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chairman Howard King says the Martyrs, who play in the Southern League Premier Division, would have been bankrupt before Christmas if they had carried on without new financial support.
Players have been told they are free to find other clubs – and there is no guarantee they will ever come back. It made me desperately sad to see, up close and personal, a football club’s struggle to survive the ravages of coronavirus.
Merthyr is a club at the very heart of its community and they have a proud history.
There are pictures on the walls of David Webley’s hat-trick when they shocked Cardiff City 4-1 in the Welsh Cup at Ninian Park 30 years ago, and of the amazing night they beat Atalanta 2-1 in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1987.
It’s only three years ago that Merthyr survived a financial crisis and put out a team of kids and office staff for an away game at Chesham, where they were 13-0 down after 65 minutes.
The 16-year-old goalkeeper, Ed Hewitson, was man of the match – without him, it would have been at least 20 – and when Merthyr broke away to make it 13-1 in the last few minutes the whole ground celebrated with them.
Now it is heartbreaking to see Merthyr forced into hibernation in order to survive – but it also makes me angry about the way football supporters are being treated in this crisis.
Just to be clear: Covid-19 has killed tens of thousands of people. I accept that we cannot take its resurgence lightly and I have no problem with preaching caution as we learn to live with it. But we can’t expect Premier League clubs to bail out the whole of football just because the top end of the game is affluent.
Yes, the Premier League needs to help, but
what is the Government doing to sustain a massive industry worth upwards of £9billion a year to the economy?
And where is the consistency in their approach?
How can it be safe to watch football sitting in a pub until 10pm but not outdoors, socially distanced in a stadium? Why is it OK for people to spill out of pubs at closing time and crowd on to public transport, but football fans cannot be trusted to leave stadiums in an orderly fashion?
Why is it acceptable for 3,000 supporters from Germany and Spain to travel across Europe to the Super Cup in Budapest – but the UK Government will not allow fans to watch games from Premier League down to National League level for six months?
And why can a limited number of fans still go to watch non-league games from steps three to six on the pyramid – but not further up the food chain? Does the Covid-19 virus prioritise elite football ahead of smaller clubs? Of course not.
My visit to Merthyr was a sobering experience. It made me desperately worried for the long-term health of football, because it may be only the tip of the iceberg.
I’m fearful that we could be looking at the collapse of the non-league pyramid and of whole communities losing the clubs which are their heartbeats and focal points.