The Return of Sport
Yesterday (Monday 29th March) was a date in the diary that seems to have been long in arriving for all frustrated sports enthusiasts. Across the country, followers of football, rugby, cricket, golf, tennis and other games have spent months watching elite players strut their stuff across their digital screens – but have not been able to go outside and do likewise. The most that Covid lockdown has allowed is some limited ‘recreational’ exercise, okay for long distance runners and cyclists, but the equivalent to the rest of us of a brief circuit or two of the prison yard.
Now it’s release time, with a dash of glorious spring weather forecast for company. A host of sports are now re-surfacing like hedgehogs after hibernation.
Although the normal local football season is more or less over, and the men’s team of Hastings United will not be returning to competitive play until August, the United women’s team will be endeavouring to complete their league campaign which started back in September. At park level a special mini-version of the East Sussex League is also to be contested through April and May in which a number of United players, freed of more serious obligations, are set to participate – more on this in our next edition.
Hastings and Bexhill rugby players, who have missed more than an entire season since last March, are returning to training – juniors (aged 11 to 17) this week, minis and seniors shortly after. There will be no full league programme until September, but some local fixtures may be arranged in May and June, and plans are afoot to reinstate a mini-festival for ages 7 to 11 in the autumn.
The cricketers of Hastings Priory will be gearing up for a full summer’s programme at Horntye in the Sussex Premier League, starting on 8th May. The team struggled in adverse circumstances through a brief cup competition last July and August, but should be strengthened considerably this year if Harry Finch returns from the Sussex county side, as was heralded in Facebook posts last month.
Meanwhile local tennis courts and golf clubs have been accepting heavy bookings for some weeks now. Fitness levels may be low, and swing paths less than smooth, but it’s game on!
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