Outlook bleak for East Sussex Football League's hopes of season finish

Local football is off until mid-Feburary at the earliest

The 2020-21 campaign was already running behind schedule and all adult grassroots football has been suspended following last week’s announcement of another national lockdown.

Asked if there’s a risk the season won’t restart, fixture secretary Kevin Bray said: “There’s always that risk. If the lockdown’s until the middle of February, I don’t think we can realistically start until March – and that’s if we’re in a low enough tier.

“We’ve got to get down to tier two to play. In tier three we can continue in certain areas, but to complete the season, we would need everyone down to tier two.

“It all depends on the Covid infection rates, and what Boris (Johnson) and the government, and the FA decide.

“The outlook’s not looking good, but I’m not going to say it (the season) is definitely going to be called off because that would have to be decided by a committee.”

Just 24 matches – slightly less than one full matchday programme – have been completed since the start of November, mainly because of the pandemic, but with some early December wet weather playing its part too.

And that figure won’t change any time soon following the announcement of tougher nationwide measures aimed at curbing the rise in Covid-19 infections.

No team across the league’s six divisions has played more than nine league matches and several sides have a dozen or more fixtures still to play by the season’s end in early May.

On top of that, many clubs are still involved in the various cup competitions, most of which are around the quarter-final stage.

Bray added: “We will look at all the options once we know we can play. Until we know when we can start again, it’s not worth discussing what we’re going to do.

“Once we know we can play, we will see how many weeks we’ve got left and make decisions from there.

“Until we’re told we’re in a certain tier and we can play, there’s not really anything we can say about it. The decision is out of our hands.”

Last season was the first time in living memory that the entire East Sussex League season was abandoned following the initial coronavirus outbreak back in March.