Phil SumblerIt was the 7th March 2020 when we all left the Liberty for the last time. It was a 0-0 draw with West Brom, a side heading towards promotion, but little did we know that on that day, football would halt for more than three months and twelve months later we would still not have returned.
Of course fans being not allowed inside stadiums has been a relatively small part of the global pandemic but football has survived for a year without those fans and we have almost become accustomed to be watching from home. Recent lockdowns have of course meant that it has to be home, even the ability to be in a pub to watch the game with mates has been taken away from us.
We still don’t know when fans will be allowed back inside the grounds. We know it won’t be this season which is doubly frustrating given the lofty position that Steve Cooper and his side currently occupy. There have been times in the past few months where I have desperately wished we were inside the ground but there have also been those dull recent midweek encounters where I have been quite happy watching from the house.
It is hard to know what it will look like when crowds do return. The likelihood of full capacity crowds straight away seem quite remote (although the English government seem to think this could be a possibility) and then you have the willingness of the fans to attend full capacity venues even if it is allowed. For many over the past twelve months they have become nervous of the virus and I would imagine that they will stay that way even when all the governments say that things are “normal” (does anyone really know what the new normal looks like?)
Twelve months ago today when we were in the ground it is hard to believe that Covid was a word we were only just becoming accustomed to and while it was upon us I don’t think there were many of us in the ground that day who would have predicted the twelve months that we have just been through.
There is clear light at the end of the tunnel though and it will certainly be at some stage this year that we welcome crowds back to football and I am sure the players and management miss us as much as we miss them. Whether football watching as we knew it will ever be the same again remains to be seen but we can only hope that it does have some level of normality. If nothing else, I miss the people I watch games with as much as I miss the actual games themselves.
Fair play during that twelve months as well to the club who have done some sterling work to keep the supporters valued. Virtual mascots, tributes to those no longer with us and video messages and the like for fans as well as even Steve Cooper making phone calls to check in on people.
The one thing that the twelve months has done is to bring the club and the community much closer together and that has to be a good thing and one that should definitely be part of the new normal.
