[spireitematt]

As much as I love and miss football, people's health is more important.

[Devongone]

I have really missed football and all other forms of sport. Following my partner's death the whole world grinding to a halt was exactly what I didn't need.

But the end of this month would be the absolute end of the football season. It's pissing down in Devon today, cricket should be under way. Tennis clubs should be thinking how they will regenerate interest now Wimbledon's gone. Athletes should be wondering about getting race fit for perhaps a couple of late season meets to start the build up to next year's Olympics. Football should be planning what to do next season in every possible scenario and worrying about the survival of some of its clubs.

Sport is as important to our long-term mental and physical health as many medicines. We could survive without it, but not in the industrialised urban over-populated shape we are in today. Sport, relaxation, entertainment and socialisation form the fabric that holds an advanced industrial and commercial economy together. Without it we won't have health anymore because we'll all be too tranqued up. The choice between sport and health exists only within a tiny window. At some point we do have to choose to live. The risk of any one of us dying of coronavirus is very much the same as the risk was of any one of us dying this year in any case. So living in fear isn't a good choice either, but trying to re-live the time lost to the virus seems mental. If the lockdown had started in early November and it was now mid-January I could see the point ……… but once the season's gone its gone.

Get a bat (not a pangolin) out. Sort out your grip for that outswinger. Shine an old ball up and see if you can get some reverse swing ……… Get your throw up sorted for that serve. Dust off the starting blocks ………

Long term those thing we regard in lockdown as distractions are our reasons for being. We don't live to be healthy. We try to be healthy so we can live more.

[spireitematt]

Hang on in there Dev, things will get better. Football will be back at some point and we will be all moaning that we didn't sign that non-league rough diamond who ends up getting a move to the Championship or moaning about formations, tactics and whether or not we can get promoted. You will be your realistic self and I will be overly optimistic like I am every year thinking that this is our season! Like I've been saying for the last 5! and have evidently been proven wrong.

I too miss the sporting calendar. I would probably be watching the World Snooker Championships at this minute on TV or be following Derbyshire on BBC Radio or watching the live stream from the County Ground as the wickets fall as they go for another disappointing season in Division 2.

Only sport which can carry on at the moment is fencing. You've got a mask, gloves and if you are within 6 feet or one another you will lose a point if you get struck by the sword.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Off topic but somebody somewhere is taking the preverbial pi55. Here we all are living in our own little social bubbles practicing good ole social distancing when allowed out for that special hour or shopping but we all forgot that we have to factor in the Irish factor. How the fukc can Aer Lingus fly a full plane with passengers sat shoulder to shoulder from Belfast to London with no controls?
Have we got a lock down or not or did we just happen to have a couple of hundred NHS staff flying back in after a sabatical in NI? It just beggars belief.

[Devongone]

Off topic but somebody somewhere is taking the preverbial pi55. Here we all are living in our own little social bubbles practicing good ole social distancing when allowed out for that special hour or shopping but we all forgot that we have to factor in the Irish factor. How the fukc can Aer Lingus fly a full plane with passengers sat shoulder to shoulder from Belfast to London with no controls?
Have we got a lock down or not or did we just happen to have a couple of hundred NHS staff flying back in after a sabatical in NI? It just beggars belief.

When asked more than 60% of people think they will be worried about travelling on public transport in the future YET when faced with the actual situation by AER Lingus they crowded on and flew. So what we say and what we do are different things.

Professor Ferguson just proved it. Everybody must lockdown except me, despite being plug ugly I'm getting a shag so that's that! Even more bizarre is that ever since Mad Cow he has been getting his mathematical modelling monumentally wrong. He said over 150,000 people would die of CJD and about 20 actually have and he's carried on with Swine Flu, Sarrs, Ollie Murs and yet he was the first one we turned to on this occasion. Other countries which also listened to him were France and the USA - hmmmm well he did well. As soon as South Korea started getting on top of this thing we should have done our best to follow their lead. In desperation we are now doing it as a last resort. Why didn't we do it earlier? Could it be that South Koreans made the mistake of being yellow and thus untrustworthy except to serve gin and tonics?

[spireitematt]

Off topic but somebody somewhere is taking the preverbial pi55. Here we all are living in our own little social bubbles practicing good ole social distancing when allowed out for that special hour or shopping but we all forgot that we have to factor in the Irish factor. How the fukc can Aer Lingus fly a full plane with passengers sat shoulder to shoulder from Belfast to London with no controls?
Have we got a lock down or not or did we just happen to have a couple of hundred NHS staff flying back in after a sabatical in NI? It just beggars belief.

I don't think we've ever had a proper lockdown. How can you call it a lockdown when planes have been flying into the country? Too many people have been taking the piss and don't understand what 'social distancing' actually is.

[Devongone]

That might be because there is no evidence that social distancing works and that different countries interpret it in different ways. In Germany, with about 7,000 deaths only social distancing is 1.5 metres. Now we're discovering it is much harder to catch 19 outside than in. Do you think the government thought through the implications of social distancing? Do you think they didn't go all the way into a proper lockdown, because that would have meant organising food deliveries to 67,000,000 people? Taking into account our inability after months to provide face masks to care home staff that we had any capacity to do more than we've done?

The Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have fared much better during 19 than the rest of the UK. We are told that going ahead with the Cheltenham races was a terrible thing. Now I spent 8 years living 5 minutes from the racecourse and all that time worked opposite it. I went to the races. I KNOW just how many thousands of Irish people go to the meeting. And I know they do not have a healthy lifestyle whilst in Cheltenham. They party, they drink they smoke ……. they celebrate the festival. Why didn't all those people return to Ireland and set alight a hotspot of Covid cases in the their own country if Cheltenham was such a bad thing?

And as they are doing so much better than us, maybe that's why AER Lingus isn't policing flights.

In war we accept people must die in the winning of the battle. We mourn them and grieve. But in this situation we want to make one death and its effect on those who loved that person a tragedy we must all bear. And we pile our collective grief high. Yet under 450 people under the age of 45 have actually died, despite the terrible toll in this country. Some of us are old. I am, or getting that way. Many of us get shoved into care homes, because families, partners and friends are no longer able or willing to deal with us. We are in fact a drain on the rest of the population. Our productive capacity is a function of how much care we need and how much employment and wealth that generates. Our contribution is similar to that of a wall being built or a building demolished. By our passivity we require your action. The value society places on us is shown by the minimum wages paid to those whose employment we create.

Now we could make society different, we could venerate the old, we could cherish them, we could make them a highly prized and thus profitable asset. But we haven't done that, just as we didn't buy mask and gowns, train enough doctors or nurses or have enough spare capacity in hospitals without throwing the old and infected back into care homes. We have done these things, okay governments may have done them on our behalf, but we let it happen. There are 67,000,000 of us. If we wanted to go out could they stop us? If we wanted to make them finance the NHS rather than HS2 how could they stop us? Things happen to us because we let them happen to us. Enough of a rant. The site is having another partial lockdown. I can't review this. I'll post and maybe edit later.

[Dancingwilldoit]

Think AS must still be in hospital recovering Dev https://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/news/2...st-update/
Both him and Dave Allen wish us well again and are planing for next season !!!!
If this approach had manifest itself a couple of years ago things could have been so diferent but there again lockdown seems to have brought out the best in a lot of people (and some the opposite). Maybe they have both had the time to review what they have done and said over time. Is it realisation that they have both behaved like 2hats that has brought this on? Either way its good news for the club as long as its lasts.

[Devongone]

Think AS must still be in hospital recovering Dev https://www.chesterfield-fc.co.uk/news/2...st-update/
Both him and Dave Allen wish us well again and are planing for next season !!!!
If this approach had manifest itself a couple of years ago things could have been so diferent but there again lockdown seems to have brought out the best in a lot of people (and some the opposite). Maybe they have both had the time to review what they have done and said over time. Is it realisation that they have both behaved like 2hats that has brought this on? Either way its good news for the club as long as its lasts.

Dancing you are so right. That is a lovely, nicely-written, friendly informative piece. I feel like writing to him to tell him. The only hint of nastiness is the way he twists the knife in Chris Turner, but ever since he was the worst goalie in pro' football a knife has been well-merited. Wish I could win Euromillions tonight. If I bought the club would everyone be horrified if I asked Ashley Carson to stay on?

I note we don't seem to want to keep Levi Amantchi, which seems like another bad move. I'm sure he's gone backwards in the last 12 months, but we've hardly helped have we?

[Dancingwilldoit]

Sorry Dev but I hope you dont win Euromillions, that would be a step too far but he's certainly changed his attitude.

Amantchi didnt even make the team every week at Blyth but did score a couple. he just seems to be another one that lost his way. Shame because what I saw of him he looked impressive, big lad, fast and skilfull.