Hastings United chief angry over Isthmian League delay vote

Billy Wood said he felt league bosses had tried to lead clubs into voting to put on hold a planned restart in mid-December.

He fears lockdown restrictions won’t have changed in January and said: “If we don’t start now, when will we start? This could drag on and on.” Clubs have voted this week on whether to restart as planned or wait until lockdown restrictions were further eased.

The full poll result has not been made public and Isthmian League bosses are set to leave a final decision with the FA but it looks likely that fixtures will not restart in December, as had been planned before last week's new government tiered restrictions complicated things.

Wood said: “I think a blanket non-restart is a bad move. But it’s not so much about when we restart, it’s the wording of the vote which was incredibly loaded.”

Clubs were asked to vote for or against this motion: “That Steps 3 & 4 continue the current pause in the season with a regular review in the light of changes to the current tiers and/or grants becoming available.”

Wood said it was as if league bosses wanted to lead clubs into voting for a further delay. He also said it was unclear whether the poll would be decided on any majority, or whether a big percentage was needed.

But he pointed out: “We were already looking at an official restart on December 19 – which is three days AFTER the government is reviewing the tiers again. Why did we need to vote now on a delay which will take us beyond that time?

“If we now don’t look at the league restarting until January 9, which has been talked about, what will have changed by then? Covid won’t just disappear on January 8.”

Hastings were on course to win the Isthmian south east last season but the campaign was declared null and void. They’re top again now and Wood can foresee another unfinished season with no prior agreement in place about whether points per game are used to work out promotion and relegation.

Wood said if the Isthmian’s Kent clubs could not play home games now with fans, they could be allowed to put them back to a date when they could admit supporters.

He claimed one Isthmian club representative said at the group’s Zoom meeting on Tuesday night they were ‘better off without football’ as they didn’t have to pay players.