How new lockdown could make Hastings United's players even fitter

The club’s management carried out extensive fitness tests at their final training session before the month-long sporting shutdown that started yesterday.

And the message to the players is: Come back in better shape than you are in now.

Boss Chris Agutter has long placed a big importance on fitness and believes the shape the squad is in is a big factor in their recent success. Now he believes they can use it to widen the gap between themselves and their rivals.

For United, the new ban on non-elite football is a bitter blow.

They were denied promotion from the Isthmian south east division last year when the campaign was suspended and then declared null and void.

Now, two months into 2020-21, they have got themselves clear at the top of the division again, only for the league to be stopped in its tracks again.

Agutter said: “I’m frustrated by it but I can’t control it. We have to play with the hand we’ve been dealt.

“We’ve done a lot of fitness testing of the players and put together a plan for them. The target is for them to come back in better shape.

“It will be driven by them and I know they’ll be keen to do well. No-one will want to come back after the lockdown being the one player who’s not as fit.”

Agutter hopes the stated timescale of a lifting of restrictions at the start of December is kept to, but realises the enforced break could be extended.

If matches can resume straight away – perhaps on Saturday, December 5 – when squads will have had little time to train together after a month away, that fitness issue will be even more important.

Hastings are still in the FA Trophy and Sussex Senior Cup (see story on the right) so the fixtures will come thick and fast when football does resume.

Agutter said: “We don’t know what the rest of the season will look like. All we can do is set out to win our next game. If things don’t get concluded as they should, we wouldn’t want that to be seen as any kind of failure on our part.”