Garforth Town manager Paul Marshall wants an indefinite end date for the new Toolstation NCEL Premier Division season if it is halted in the coming weeks.
Competitive team outdoor sports were allowed to continue following prime minister Boris Johnson’s unveiling of new restrictions in view of rising Covid-19 cases across the UK.
However, fears remain that Steps 3 to 7 football could be banned as we head into the winter and Marshall insists the FA cannot go down the road of expunging the campaign again.
Currently the NCEL season is due to finish on May 8th, but other leagues have chosen different dates for their final day.
“No you can’t look too far ahead and you try and take every game as it comes,” Marshall told Non League Yorkshire.
“I don’t know if the season will even get finished? It probably shouldn’t have started.
“After Tuesday’s (Government) announcement it will be stopped again in October probably.
“They’ll just have to extend it (the season). They have had enough problems from last year where teams were all fuming because they didn’t go up because the season wasn’t finished.
“We could have just carried on that season now. I think they’ll just keep going with this season and spin it out as long as it takes.
“It would be unfair to do it again for those in promotion battles to scrap it again.
“It would also be unfair on everyone who has spent a lot of time assembling teams. It would certainly be end of me (if it was expunged again), that’s for sure, as I don’t think I’d be bothered to keep stop-starting-stop-starting. I’m 58 next month so I’m not getting any younger am I.”
If matches are stopped in the near future, Marshall is still glad Garforth will have played several home games as they have brought in much-needed revenue.
“Our level of football can’t be played without fans,” he said.
“We had to play teams like Scarborough without fans and that would have been our big money-spinner.
“So we lost a lot of money. Fortunately we got the Whitley Bay game in where we lost, but at least we got the crowd in.
“We got the Worksop game in with a crowd. It is unusual circumstances and everyone is adapting differently, but I’m so pleased for (owners) Craig (Bannister) and Brian (Close) that we have had some income coming back into the club.”
Garforth visit Marshall’s old club Goole AFC tomorrow – another scene of his many great triumphs.
He led Goole to the Premier Division title in 2005 and he takes a buoyant Garforth there following two fantastic victories.
The Miners hammered Sunderland West End in the FA Vase on Saturday and then Jack Lazenby scored the late winner in the solitary victory in the league opener with Silsden on Tuesday night.
“It is a great start (to the league season) and I’m absolutely to get a start like that against a decent team,” he said.
“It was a really physical game. Both teams were going for it. Quality was poor if I’m being honest compared to Saturday (against Sunderland) where we played really well with the ball.
“On Tuesday we had to grind a result out through sheer guts and determination which it is what all my teams do.
“It looked like it was going to fizzle out to a 0-0 draw, but that’s where we are different now. We have got that passion and desire to win a game instead of trying to hanging onto a draw.
“We’ve had two positive results and that’s what I said to the players before. I said ‘if we can get a positive result tonight to go full of confidence to Goole on Saturday’.”
If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.
NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams. As we slowly return to ‘action’, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.
We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.
We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.
Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and because of the cancelled Lucille Rollinson Memorial Tournament, we are down on projected income for the year and we have incurred losses in the last few months.
We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. Several of our players are suffering from effects of the lockdown and we are determined to be in the strongest position possible to provide services for them.
Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.
Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.