Following a number of major sporting competitions being shut down prior to this weekend due to concerns over the spread of coronavirus we were left with non-league football to fly the flag for sport and one of the biggest attended sporting events in the country on Saturday was at Notts County as they beat Eastleigh 4-0 to continue their promotion push in the National League.
That game however might be the last as the competition governors this week discuss options to postpone matches with other leagues effecting football clubs in Nottinghamshire set to do the same.
So far the BetVictor Northern Premier League has like the National League continued to play matches with the Midland Football League doing the same. However the Northern Counties East League has taken a completely different stance and like the FA Premier League and Football League decided to postpone matches over the weekend with no games taking place on Saturday.
The NCEL state “ A date for the resumption of fixtures will be announced as soon as it is considered safe to do so”.
At Steps 10 and 11 there are no plans to cancel or postpone matches in the East Midlands Counties League, Central Midlands League or Notts Senior League but that could all change in due course.
In other sports the Elite League were quick (despite Nottingham Panthers and their fans already being in Northern Ireland to watch the team play Belfast Giants over the weekend) to announce the closure of the regular Ice Hockey season with immediate effect on Friday.
The Elite League said it “has no choice but to shut down the rest of the season” with further announcements made this week.
In Rugby Union it was left to Nottingham & Jersey to call off their proposed match at Lady Bay on Saturday after two Jersey Reds players had asked to ‘self-isolate’ ahead of their flight to East Midlands. With the Gallagher Premiership set to make an announcement to suspend proceedings this week, the Championship (which Nottingham play in) should follow and other leagues below may also take similar action.
In Basketball both the WBBL and NBL have postponed all upcoming games including matches over last weekend although the WBBL Trophy Finals did take place on Sunday.
In Field Hockey the mens and womens Premier Division’s came to a conclusion at the weekend with the last round of fixtures played with defeats for both Beeston teams with the men finishing sixth and the ladies in eighth in their respective tables. As of yet it is unclear whether the playoffs (involving the top four teams in each league) will take place but the England Hockey Championship Cup Final which Beeston Ladies are involved in scheduled for May 9th is still a way off so as of yet no decision has been made on that.
Finally if you need sport (and we do) Southwell Races is ON today with the tracks first full jumps race meeting of the year with the going heavy but soft in places the first race of the day is a 3m Handicap Chase starting at 2pm.
We’ll bring you further updates on the sporting situation as it comes in.
*Main image @Southwell_Races the track looking perfect in the sun this morning ahead of today’s meet.
