If and when we get through this, it’s vital our clubs are waiting for us on the other side

AT SOME point, we’re going to have to think about what is left waiting for us on the other side of this crisis.

And that is why the hardest hit of our football clubs, teams in imminent danger of total collapse, should feel no shame in making their case for a share of the £350billion package announced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak yesterday.

A loan to help stay afloat. A leg up for a sector of the leisure and hospitality industry that can be wasteful, bloody-minded and arrogant in equal measure — yet still deserves to be saved.

Some will be furious at the very idea of public money being used to salvage something as frivolous as a kids’ game that’s played by grown men.

But consider this. Richard Branson owns a private island and a spaceship. If he can make a case for a rescue package while keeping a straight face, an SPFL League One team looking to stave off insolvency and liquidation shouldn’t feel too bad about seeking some temporary assistance with paying the bills — including invoices from small firms reliant on the system running smoothly.

No one is pretending that saving Scotland’s less-well-off teams, not just the provincial scufflers but big-city outfits overstretched by ruinous ambition or sideswiped by events, should be the No 1 priority of a government trying to guide its citizens safely through an utterly terrifying global pandemic guaranteed to put the entire economy under unprecedented strain.

But this isn’t an either/or equation. We can be concerned about the burden on the NHS. And we can argue that it’s worth helping industries who, we all hope and pray, will be there to restore a sense of normality to life in due course.

You can still prioritise the health of your grandad, while hoping that the club he first took you to way back when is still around for your own grandchildren.

This isn’t about promotion or relegation, seasons being declared void or presumptive champions claiming titles from incomplete campaigns. It’s a matter of collective commercial survival.

Amid the flurry of carefullyworded statements yesterday, there was some vague promise of help from FIFA, with president Gianni Infantino putting it in typically obtuse terms.

He offered up a mere suggestion of ‘discussing the possibility of establishing a Global Football Assistance Fund to help members of the football community affected by this crisis’. There you have it. An idea to talk about something that might happen.

Judging by how long it takes to conduct the average World Cup draw, nobody involved in football will be holding their breath waiting for their global governing body — still trolling us all with that ‘For The Good Of The

Game’ motto — to come riding to the rescue.

Some are in such dire straits that they can’t afford to hang around in the hope of money trickling down from on high.

Raith Rovers yesterday launched a crowdfunding page in the hope of seeing them through the very worst to come; other clubs already have or will soon do the same.

At a time when many supporters are likely to be dealing with some incredibly serious financial problems of their own, this sort of thing is going to be a very, very hard sell.

But those who can afford it will probably help out. For reasons that perhaps require a degree of explanation to those not so emotionally invested in the game.

For a football fan, the prospect of the local cinema shutting down would cause annoyance over the inconvenience, along with sympathy for the staff affected.

If your team goes under, though, what do you do? It’s a prospect that many of us have faced up to in recent years. No one has yet provided an acceptable answer.

Pick another team? As if. Just stop watching football completely? Become an armchair fan without so much as a leaning to one side or another? You might as well take up lawn bowls and be done with it.

Without being flippant, it’s just a fact that football matters a great deal to a great many people.

Which is why such a large chunk of the population would have been following UEFA’s Europewide video conference with such interest yesterday. And rolling their eyes at the outcome.

Because there is more than one obvious flaw in the cockamamie plan to have all outstanding domestic and international fixtures on the 2019-20 seasonal calendar done and dusted by June 30.

First, the projected spread of the coronavirus makes it extremely unlikely that anyone will be playing football in Scotland by June.

Hampden will not be hosting the Euro 2020 (now 2021) play-off between Steve Clarke’s men and Israel. The league is not certain to be played to a conclusion — even using every available midweek — before July is out.

Like everything said by absolutely everyone at the moment, then, UEFA’s plan is subject to the usual caveat. This is today’s position. Check back tomorrow for a completely different answer.

Ultimately, we can only wait this out. Wait for, if not the finishing line, then at least a period of respite long enough to savour some of the things we’re already missing.

Visiting family. Eating out. Going to the pub. And, yes, roaring ourselves hoarse in support of grown adults playing a silly little game for our entertainment.

All of these things do matter. As an avid reader of dystopian novels, something proving both useful and unnerving in current climes, thoughts turn to a motto used by a travelling theatre group in the post-apocalyptic world of Emily St. John Mandel’s excellent

Station Eleven: ‘Survival is insufficient.’ For some of our football clubs, and those who love them for all their faults, just making it through until the resumption of play — three, four or more months down the line — is all that matters.