On Friday 13th March, football stopped for over 300 young footballers at Newton Aycliffe Youth FC, as all our local youth leagues suspended matches. The football club committee then decided therefore, that we could not continue to bring the children together for any football club events. The committee felt the health of all our children was our top priority.
All training sessions were cancelled as well as scheduled fund raising events. Our individual club decision became a directive from the Football Association the following week, but the hope was that football would recommence by the end of April, to allow our teams to complete their league campaigns. However all our hopes were dashed as The FA announced at the end of March that season 2019/2020 was ended.
Scheduled end of season and pre-season tournaments have been suspended or rescheduled in the hope that football can recommence, but in reality we can only look towards the normal start of next season, which is scheduled for early September.
Meanwhile social media is being used in many ways across all our teams at the football club, from general information, on line training sessions, to fun challenges taken on by individual teams, old photos of past teams and team coaches when they were in their prime, have been dug out from drawers and posted on our Facebook group, to entertain our young children, their parents and ex-players.
However, as an FA Charter Standard Community Football Club, that stretches beyond football and into the heart of our community, our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by the current Covid 19 crisis. We applaud all those working in the NHS and those working in care homes looking after our most vulnerable, as well as every key worker.
We will get through this and football will once again restart and communities will build on the experiences they have gone through to be even stronger. Until that day be safe and please follow all the government guidelines that are issued.
