14 September: 
Hastings Utd 1, Harefield Utd 0  

21 September: 
Lewes 1, Hastings Utd 1

Hastings United led Isthmian Premier League leaders Lewes for most of their match at the Dripping Pan stadium last Saturday, before having to settle for a 1-1 draw. Playing in front of a crowd of over 1,400, many having made the short trip over to support the ‘U’s, they took the lead in the fourth minute through Billy Vigar – the striker’s first league goal of the season – and kept it till the 82nd, when the home side equalised.

The previous Saturday at the Pilot Field, the ‘U’s had to wait till the fifth minute of added time to score the only goal of their FA Cup tie with Combined Counties team Harefield United. Davide Rodari swept a low right-foot shot into the bottom corner from a free-kick inside the ‘D’. 

Their reward is an away fixture in the third qualifying round against fellow Isthmian Premier side Cray Wanderers to be contested tomorrow. The home league match against Chatham Town previously scheduled for that day will be played next Tuesday evening (1 October). 

Thus global TV audiences have been able to feast on a menu of Premier League action performed from within a protected bubble since 17th June; meanwhile, grassroots clubs, albeit shorn of changing rooms and other hospitality facilities, have been allowed to re-start training sessions for the coming season from this month and to play matches from August onwards, subject to club-by-club risk assessments 

January: Hastings United fans cheer last minute equaliser at Sevenoaks
PICTURE: Scott White

That leaves a third sector caught in the middle: the professional and semi-professional football clubs, like Hastings United, that don’t attract TV coverage but need gate money from live spectators, and preferably bar takings from them as well, to be viable. What are their prospects of resuming play?

The 2019/20 season was wound up with non-league results for the most part annulled. In the Betvictor Isthmian League, in which Hastings play, all issues of championship, promotion and relegation have been shelved, and the clubs will start a new season again from scratch. They will not do so, however, until at least some paying spectators can be allowed into grounds.

Covid-secure 

The earliest that could happen looks like October. That’s what PM Boris Johnson signalled on 17th July, as part of his ‘road map’ for a return to “significant normality”.  He stated that the government’s intention was in that month  “to bring back audiences in stadiums…in a Covid-secure way”.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has indicated that this will entail crowd management protocols at such venues, including one-way systems for the controlled entry and exit of fans, the installation of additional hygiene facilities, and the possibility of screening procedures on entrance.

Many clubs will also suffer a considerable reduction in full stadium capacity. Spectators, whether standing or seated, are likely to be required to keep at least one metre apart. At grounds where seats are installed in rows, that may mean occupation of alternate seats and/or alternate rows only.

Exceptional 

At Pilot Field, where the stand consists of benches without individual allocated seats and where the majority of spectators often prefer to watch from standing positions around the perimeter, that shouldn’t present too much of a problem. Capacity was last tested in December 2012 when just over 4,000 were crammed in to watch Hastings replay an FA Cup second round tie against Harrogate. That, though, was a truly exceptional occasion. The ‘U’s’ last home game before lockdown, played on 7th March against Whitstable Town, attracted a crowd of 721, and even the highest gate of the 2019/20 season – 1,189 that watched defeat by Ashford United in February – amounted to less than 30 per cent of this capacity threshold.

Assuming a league start in October, the FA has calculated that all 2020/21 leagues could be played out in full, but league and county cup competitions would have to be cancelled. If, however, there was a second wave of the Covid-19 virus, with the possibility of further local (or national) lockdowns, the prospect of a second successive season of league disruption cannot be discounted.

Amidst all these uncertainties it would be hardly surprising if clubs decide to take rather fewer players on contract. Hastings have, however, re-signed the majority of last year’s league-topping squad and look well-placed to challenge for honours again. Their prospects will be reviewed in more detail in a future column.

The Premier League and English Football League have yet to decide how to resolve their unfinished schedules. Supporters of Liverpool (waiting to celebrate their first league title in 30 years) and of Stevenage (marooned at the bottom of League 2) wait with contrasting hopes and fears to learn their clubs’ respective fates. But for Hastings United, unhappy news has already arrived, with an FA decree that all match results since last August in Steps 3 to 6 of the non-league pyramid, including all divisions of the Betvictor Isthmian League, are to be expunged. The season of 2019/20 has been declared not merely dead and buried, but effectively unborn.

Craig Stone of Hastings United
PICTURE: Scott White

United  – with three-quarters of the season played, only two league defeats sustained, and three points clear of the pack with two games in hand – were clear favourites to march on to a first championship in 18 years and thus achieve promotion back to the Isthmian Premier after a seven-year absence. Since Christmas, home crowd numbers at Pilot Field had averaged over 730 per game. To have the whole season nullified is a cruel disappointment  –  and one which CEO Billy Woods intends to challenge as far as he can.

On 30th March he issued a press release stating that the club is in dialogue with “a continuously growing number of football clubs from around the nation” who feel that the existing season should be played out to a finish “whenever safe to do so”, as seems still quite likely in the case of the higher leagues.

Mr Woods urges reconsideration of the voiding decision: “We understand the uncertainty of when football can resume but, for the integrity of the competitions with 70% (in some cases more) already completed, the completion of this season should be held in higher regard than the start of the 2020/21 season… The decision to null and void our season without any consultation with the member clubs in such a hasty manner seems unjust, not only to the clubs leading their divisions but to each and every member club whose management, volunteers, players and supporters have given up their time and money.

“This isn’t about Hastings United,” said Mr Woods. “This is about the knock-on effect across our non-league game.”

There are effectively two alternative options that the league committees will have considered before making their decision, and which may be further debated before it is ratified by the FA: 

• playing the season out whenever the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic allow; or 

• determining final places (and applying promotion and relegation issues accordingly) on the basis of points per game attained so far.

Elongation of the season past the end of May, now inevitable if the full schedule were to be fulfilled, would cause severe complications for non-league clubs, including Hastings United, that operate with season-to-season player contracts and registrations. While clubs vying for promotion may well prefer it, the majority who are not would have no incentive to play along.

Adopting current placings as final, with adjustments for numbers of games played, will seem fair to those like Hastings in prime positions; less so for those just outside promotion spots or, equally affected, those that would be thus doomed to a relegation they will have been hoping to avoid.