CROWDS BACK IN FROM START OF OCTOBER

Government officials are pleased with the success of football’s first pilot for the return of spectators and are working towards welcoming socially distanced crowds back inside grounds from the start of october.

Brighton hosted a friendly against Chelsea with 2,500 fans at the Amex Stadium on Saturday.

the event was closely observed by the Department for Digital, Culture, media and Sport and they will liaise this week with experts from the Sports Grounds Safety Authority about scaling up the pilot schemes.

Plans are already in place to open turnstiles to restricted audiences across various sports throughout September.

Selected events include a Premiership rugby fixture between Harlequins and Bath, cricket matches in the Bob Willis trophy and t20 Blast, a basketball friendly at newcastle, speedway at Ipswich and horseracing at Doncaster, Warwick and newmarket.

West Ham have a capacity of 1,000 fans for the Women’s Super League fixture against Arsenal at Dagenham and redbridge’s victoria road on Saturday week. this will be the first competitive UK football fixture to be played in front of a crowd since the lockdown in march.

the Football Association hope to invite a crowd of about 10,000 into Wembley Stadium for the trophy and vase finals on September 20. First, they have to squeeze in the semi- finals — pencilled in for the week beginning September 14.