Wokingham & Emmbrook manager Dan Bateman has pleaded for more support for grassroots football during the postponement of all ‘non-elite’ sports during lockdown.
The Sumas have made a scintillating start to the season in Hellenic Division One East, boasting an unbeaten record in their opening seven fixtures to put the top of the table.
But their momentum has been put on hold after the latest lockdown saw all ‘non-elite’ sport postponed until December, 2.
“There was talk before the official announcement so it didn’t come as a surprise but it’s disappointing,” said Bateman.
“Non league football is so important to so many people. All the way from the volunteers who make it happen, and from my point of view it helps me stay sane and is a distraction from the normal pressures of life.
“It’s something I do to escape and there is potential that things could have been dealt with differently, but I do completely understand why they did it.
“I think there are potentially other ways it could have been done.
There is an element of grassroots football being overlooked. Like everything, it’s always looked at from the top down.
“Everyone worries about the Premier League, then the football league and by the time you get to step six, there isn’t the same ground well of support so it feels like it is a bit of an afterthought.”
Although he is in favour of lockdown restrictions to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus, Bateman believes that there may have been other methods for grassroots football to have been dealt with to protect clubs in their local communities.
“Every club at our level has several volunteers and supporters and it’s so important to them,” he continued.
“And as for the youth section, at our club we have more than 60 teams in total who train and play regularly. So it affects so many people in our local area.
“Being outside exercising and having social interaction is important, and the threat of the virus isn’t something we should take lightly, but I do think the way grassroots football is handled could be dealt with differently.
“As a club we have a solid foundation with no debts other than when we play football. We’re in a relatively healthy position but there will be clubs who will be in an awful lot of trouble.
“A lot of them rely purely on first team football and without that they have no income.”
The Sumas were due to play a league fixture on Saturday, October 31 against local rivals Woodley United, but the fixture was postponed due to a positive test among the Woodley team.
“We had the Woodley game postponed and the week before we didn’t have a game so it’s almost been as if our lockdown began two weeks prior to everyone else.
“So when the league is resumed, most teams will come into it having not played for four weeks, whereas we won’t have played for six.
“The good thing is that we were able to train in those two weeks before lockdown and some of the lads managed to get some minutes for the reserve side.
“We have to get up to speed very quickly. The league are discussing restarting on December 12 so provided that lockdown ends when it is scheduled to, we should be able to get some training sessions in and potentially one or two friendlies in the week leading up to the restart.”
