‘It would be a travesty to keep USP down again’

Baffins Milton Rovers chairman Steve Cripps remains in favour of null and voiding the 2020/21 Wessex League season.

Even if the pandemic-wrecked campaign could restart in April, he insists it would be better to ‘play out the cups and draw a line under the league.’

Cripps would then be hopeful ‘some mechanism’ could be found by the Football Association to promote US Portsmouth into the top flight of the Wessex for 2021/22.

Following on from the Government allowing grassroots football to resume from March 29, the FA are planning to meet with leagues at step 5 and 6 levels - including the Wessex League - this week.

If a season which has been paused since just before Christmas is given the green light, games could resume in mid-April.

A second successive null and voiding for steps 3-6 remains the most likely outcome, though.

For Cripps, below, Boris Johnson’s ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ announcement hasn’t changed his view.

‘The season should be scrapped,’ he said. ‘Some clubs can’t use their grounds after April because of cricket, and then it would be a case of ‘are we home or away?’ and it would just be a mess.

‘We’ve taken the chance (during lockdown) to do some pitch maintenance work - we’d have to play all our games away.

‘Let’s just play out the cups and concentrate on getting everything right for the start of the next league season.’

By then, Cripps is hopeful US Portsmouth could be on Baffins’ Wessex Premier fixture list.

USP top the Wessex Division 1 points-per-game table based on all results since the start of the 2019/20 season.

‘There has to be some consideration given to what they have achieved, some mechanism whereby the FA can promote them,’ said the PMC Stadium chief.

‘To let them stay in their division for another season would be a travesty.

‘I’d vote for them to come up and I’m sure Paul (Kelly, AFC Portchester chairman) and Horndean would as well. It would be good for the Portsmouth area if they came up.’

If the FA were to null and void steps 3-6, Baffins would have played just 36 Wessex Premier games in 2019/20 and 2020/21 combined – two fewer than one completed season - due to the pandemic.

No other Wessex Premier club have played fewer league games than Baffins over the same period, but Rovers could still have at least one competitive game to play prior to next season as Shaun Wilkinson’s squad are through to the final of the 2019/20 Portsmouth Senior Cup, having beaten a youthful Horndean in December. There they will meet either Moneyfields or Fareham Town.

‘You could introduce a one-off cup to give clubs a few games,’ Cripps added, ‘but to get all the league games on will be too hard.’

Hayling United manager Dan Bishop reckons any chance of finishing the Hampshire Premier League season is now ‘done’.

But the Humbugs boss would be open to the idea of a knockout competition if the campaign is declared null and void.

The grassroots game was given a boost with Boris Johnson announcing organised outdoor sport could return from March 29.

But Bishop insisted that does provide a large enough window of opportunity for steps 3-6 and Regional Feeder Leagues - who haven’t been granted a season extension until the end of June - to reach a conclusions.

Bishop, whose sixth-placed side have played 14 of 30 HPL Senior Division matches this term, has instead called for campaigns to be scrapped.

And he would rather see a short knockout competition introduced in order to fill the space between now and the summer or for clubs to just start fresh in pre-season.

Bishop said: ‘I don’t see the worth in restarting the season. If we can come back within some sort of time frame and give the lads some sort of knockout competition to give them something fine, but I think the league is done.

‘Come back properly, when we do have a proper pre-season, get people fit and ready, have the right procedures in place, be Covid secure and understand what we’re doing. Do it again properly, that’s my view on it.

‘If we’re going to come back then the priority absolutely needs to be the safety and well-being of everyone involved.

‘I can’t see how a league can happen but we’ll do anything we’re presented with, we won’t moan, we’ll just get on with it.’

The HPL consulted its 31 members club on how they wanted to see this season concluded.

Bishop revealed the Humbugs were in favour of a points per game scenario being implemented over the past two seasons.

He said it was the only fair way to reward clubs for their ‘hard work’ and success on the pitch.