Handsworth manager Russ Eagle believes Non League Football will not be in a position to start the 2020/21 season in September.
Eagle is the first Toolstation NCEL manager since the 5th September date was released to express misgivings about the FA’s current plan to make teams play 38 league fixtures and face long journeys for away matches in the middle of a global pandemic.
The obstacles facing clubs and players are huge, with changing rooms, spectator safety, player availability for midweek fixtures and travelling conditions just a few of the many challenges.
Then’s there is localised lockdowns and the danger of whole teams having to self-isolate if just one player tests positive for Covid-19.
“I think it is great having the date, but it is not achievable at this moment in time because of lockdown situations in certain areas,” Eagle told Non League Yorkshire.
“You could be preparing on the Friday night to play somewhere the next day and the place you could be going to could be shutdown on Saturday morning.
“We only need one lad in our squad who works in a business or a company or in the healthcare where they’ve been training, felt rubbish and then being tested positive.
“That’s your whole squad done for a fortnight and you can’t do anything about it. It is going to be nigh on impossible (to avoid that situation).
“If any team gets through the season without having to cancel a game because they are self-isolating then I’ll be amazed.
“The (current planned) schedule is a nightmare (for various reasons) and anybody who says any different is probably a bit deluded.
“The weather is the least of our problems. I think there isn’t an absolute flipping pray of the season finishing if the bad weather comes.
“There’ll be games off in December, January, February, when if we start in September, we’re already cramming games in.
“Nobody wants to be seen as the mardy get about it Everyone wants to play football, so do I, but you have to be practical about playing and if you’re going to start a season I want to finish it. I don’t want to get 15 games in for them to say ‘right, we can’t finish it’. That would be a waste of people’s time.
“I could guarantee that if you sat with every manager in our league in a pub having a pint, they’d be probably only two who would go ‘nah, you’re talking rubbish, just get on with it’.
“I would imagine everyone is thinking the same about these decisions, without saying it. People know what I’m like, I’m a bit different (I will say it).
“I want a full season because I think it is the only true way you can find a winner and runner-up and relegation.
“But if we get to the stage where we don’t start on September 5th, we’ll struggle to get the season finished.”
Although he did not suggest an alternative league format, Eagle believes the FA were caught by surprise by the sudden change in Government rules in July regarding the return of football.
He says the current planned formant has been done in haste and there is no consideration of the travelling clubs will have to face. The Handsworth boss also claims the Steps 3-6 leagues should have formed a stronger alliance to make their voices heard.
“I think it could have been looked at a bit earlier and then me and you wouldn’t be having this chat of ‘what happens if this happens or what happens if this happens’,” he said.
“I feel (the FA) they have looked at it and gone ‘bloody hell, we have got to do this and that and we have to get it together’ I think a little more planning and communication from everyone right down to the teams would have been better.
“I know (the FA) they make decisions and they expect you to toe the line, but it hasn’t been the best planning.
“I also look at every league and we have to go to Bridlington, places like that. Surely as a league they’d take a decision and go right ‘this isn’t going to happen, you’re playing and staying in this area’.
“Looking across the country itself, people are just waiting for people to make a decision at the top rather than saying ‘we’re doing this because we feel this is right for the people in our league and area’.
“We haven’t. We’ve let it filter down from the FA and the leagues have said ‘ok’.
“We don’t even know who is making these decisions (at the FA). All you get is a sheet signed by somebody you’ve never heard of or seen.”
The planned schedule, with midweek games expected to be every week, is expected to be the heaviest in recent memory. Privately, many NCEL club officials say it is sheer lunacy to expect players to commit to such a scenario when unemployment is rising and Eagle admits it is concern.
“I know some teams have good financial backing, but even with that, it doesn’t lads at our level and the level above to go their employer and say ‘I need this off, I want that off, I want that off this month’,” he said.
“That doesn’t work. We are not at that standard to be able to dictate. Nobody cannot afford to get injured either. If you’ve been made redundant and you’re trying to find work and you suffer a break playing football, your livelihood is at crossroads.”
Although very sceptical about the season starting, Handsworth’s pre-season is a proper campaign.
“I’d be doing a injustice to the lads and the club if I just went ‘go on, we’ll just train and do bits and bobs’,” he said.
“We’re going for it and we’re getting fit, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking ‘this might not happen’. But I have to do what I feel right to get the lads ready for the 5th. Whether that comes is a different matter.
“If we get to that (first league) game on Saturday 5th, fantastic. If not, we’ll start again and hit the next date they give us.
“I imagine every lad at our level just wants to come and train and be around people. We all have our safeguarding bits, but as soon as they walk out of our gates, we haven’t got a clue about what our lads are doing.
“They could be going anywhere, mixing with anybody. We’re in the clap of the gods.”