Woollcott: Football will have to take a back seat

Canterbury City jointmanager Chris Woollcott believes ‘football will have to take a back seat’ amid the coronavirus outbreak, writes Thomas Reeves.

Woollcott hopes his City team, who are eighth in the Southern Counties East League (SCEFL) table, are allowed to finish their season despite their league having suspended all fixtures up to and including March 28. But he is more worried about people’s health.

He said: “We’ll do whatever the league tells us, basically. “At the minute, games are suspended until after March 28 but we’ll see what happens. “I work in a school (Sandwich Technology School), and we are still open, but I know a lot of people are self-isolating. “I honestly don’t know what is going to happen, really. We will have to see what happens. “Hopefully we get to finish the season because I’m sure that every team will actually want to finish the season.

“But we’ll just have to take it as it comes and football will have to take a back seat at a time like this.”

While the Premier League, Football League and Isthmian League were all suspended at the weekend, the SCEFL leagues – as well as the three divisions in the National League –went ahead.

City were due to host Lordswood at Salters Lane but their match was called off. “Two Erith & Belvedere players have been in selfisolation which, I think, we found out about on Friday night,” Woollcott explained. “Obviously, we had played them the previous Saturday (drawing 2-2).

“So the league basically said to us, ‘Right just because you have played them and they have two players in selfisolation and we are still in that seven-day period, you can’t play that game’. “That was understandable. “We are just a bit in the dark at the moment.

“We don’t know if we are going to play any more football or not, we can’t even train at the moment.

“But we are getting updates every day, aren’t we.

“So I’m sure it will all become clearer.

“Hopefully the situation eases and we can finish the season one way or another.”