Morpeth Town Chairman Ken Beattie has issued the following statement regarding the FA decision to finish the league season early and make it null and void in light of the escalating Coronavirus pandemic:
Coronavirus has brought the World to its knees, bringing with it worry, sadness and financial ruin.
Such a situation puts football, and all other sports, into perspective. Regardless, it has to be said football does play an important role in many people’s lives, and particularly at non-league level where the game is only executed with the help of dedicated, unpaid volunteers.
It is therefore disappointing to see the FA deciding to call a halt to the season, determining there will be no promotion or relegation at any non-league level below the National League.
Clearly this has been a difficult and controversial decision but one I feel the FA had no choice but to make. I say this based on the fact that the only other practical option was to try and calculate the finishing line on the basis of a points per game basis.
This option I feel would, in many of the leagues involved, not have been necessarily the fairest option as there could have been arguments such as the number of away matches played compared to home matches and, of course, the old cliché that points in the bag are worth far more than games in hand.
Of course, in some instances it would have been clearer but overall, looking across the leagues, there were many complicated situations which would simply have been much more controversial.
Putting this to one side, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the players, management, committee members, helpers and supporters of Morpeth Town FC who have given so much this season, all helping to take us to the quarter-final of the League Cup, the final of the Northumberland Senior Cup and a position in the league that left us with a great chance of, at least, making the play-offs.
