Magpies hoping to welcome back supporters for home game with Halifax

Maidenhead United hope to welcome fans back into York Road for the visit of Halifax Town on May 22, should lockdown restrictions continue to be eased in line with the Government's expectations.

At present restrictions preventing fans from being allowed into grounds will be relaxed on May 17, meaning up to 1,000 supporters could be back in the ground for the visit of Halifax.

“At the moment it’s May 17 on the Government’s roadmap for stepping out of lockdown,” said Peter Griffin.

“Which would give us one home game with fans against Halifax on May 22. But if games get pulled between now and then we might have another one slip into there.

“It’s not going to be massive in terms of the number of games we have with fans, but it would be lovely just to get one game in. Now the guideline would be 50 per cent of capacity up to 2,000, and we’d still have social distancing in place, but I think we’d be ready to accept between 800, and 1,000 fans. Now that would be for one game, or maybe more if there are postponements or, dare I say it, play-off matches.

Monday, March 29 is another big day for the community arm of the club, when the next set of lockdown restrictions will be relaxed.

“March 29 is a massive day for the community part of the club,” added Griffin. “It means our Easter programmes can be run. What we saw last summer was a huge uptake in those because everyone wants their kids to be outside and doing something active.

“We’ll be running lots of stuff, and Maidenhead Juniors will also be starting up again from then. I’ve already seen lots of information about what their plan is going to be and there will be matches every week so it’s going to be fantastic.

“Given the time of year, people want to be outdoors more so it’s just perfect.

“If it’s done safely there’s really very little risk in terms of outside transmission between kids. We look forward to all of that coming back from the end of March and the beginning of April.”