SUSPENSION HAS BOUGHT SOME TIME
JON UNDERWOOD, joint-boss of Slough Town, gives his reaction to the suspension of the season after his club initiated the calls
FOR us, there has always been two major issues. Since the new wave of Covid and the lockdown, it’s absolutely been safety of our staff and players.
But we knew this funding issues was coming. We knew it was going to be a major issue, despite being told verbally in December not to worry.
That’s why we made a stance we did on Thursday that we weren’t prepared to go into another week of football, another week of wages, with the issue there is no guarantee we are going to get anything.
A few weeks, we were calling for a suspension in the season. That was based on safety. Myself and Bakes (joint-boss Neil Baker) have been really pleased how our club have handled the situation – they’ve been so supportive of our concerns around safety.
We stuck our necks out a few weeks back and said we are concerned for player safety, we don’t think we should be continuing. We are the only ‘elite’ levels with no testing protocols in place and we felt that put us in a difficult position.
Now the league has been suspended following the options presented to clubs on Wednesday. We felt, and a lot of people felt, that although Option 2 might be better than Option 1, which is a very clear loan, there would still be some pain down the road.
Clubs like ourselves, we just don’t have the resources and the club isn’t set up in a way we can take on any sort of debt – however that is.
What the National League have done now is given themselves some breathing space. I think that’s the right thing to do because it allows them to have the conversations they need to have.
It’s interesting Step 1 is continuing. Everything has always moved in tandem – it feels maybe now they are going to be treated differently and maybe that’s not wrong. There is a huge difference between some of those clubs and some in our league.
My reservation on all this is that the DCMS are reiterating their stance there is no grants and clubs are going to have to apply individually as any other organisation will. I don’t know what is going to change in the next two weeks. But it buys the National League time to make some decisions.