It doesn’t get Easier…

I have been trying to put the tragic footballing accident to bed mentally but it just won’t go away. Today I dropped Epi to the station because she has a nasty cold and it helps her given that she has heart issues. Unfortunately, when I came back my neighbour was sweeping his yard. I can’t blank a neighbour, especially one who I get on well with. The problem is that he is a Luton Town supporter and we often converse about football.

Understandably, he’s heard about the death – it did make the national news in the sports sections after all. His first question – ‘What happened?’… Followed by ‘Were you there?’ And so I had to go through all the things I’d rather not remember from that day. I explained about the proximity of the wall to the pitch, the fact that the player lost his footing and rolled over resulting in him colliding with it at speed with the back of his head. We talked about the missed opportunities of a similar accident in 2022 where a player narrowly escaped with his life and questioned why that red flag hadn’t prompted the FA into action. It’s fair to say that we both feel that the FA only care when there’s big money involved and that their support for clubs further down the pyramid is woeful.

Things are moving forwards, albeit slowly. Firstly, our matches scheduled for tomorrow night and Thursday night have been postponed. I will not be surprised to see more postponements for us and Chichester City as the players struggle to come to terms with what happened. In this respect I was pleased to read in a club statement that the PFA (Professional Footballers Association) are actively providing counselling for the players.

The FA, somewhat belatedly, have also become involved and have been talking with the club about remedial measures. It has been suggested that a form of rubber safety padding could be installed though I note that this would need accreditation which suggests that it isn’t something that has been tried before and that the suggestion has come from somewhere other than the FA.

In the interim, I will not be surprised if we do a period of ground-sharing with another club while this is sorted out. I also wonder how many of our team will wish to return to action in the short term. I’m certainly not ready to return… I think the club statement got it right – ‘Following such tragic circumstances, there is currently no appetite for football at the Maurice Rebak Stadium’.

Today has been a mix of fun train photography interrupted by bad memories from 2 weeks ago 😢If only I hadn’t had that accidental meet…