Leisure Leagues Beverley have reinforced their desire to bring small sided football back to the local community as soon as possible.

The league - which plays at Bishop Burton College on Monday evenings - has been running 18 months, but has spent much of the past 12 months disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic.

League manager Mike Yardley said, "It has been so frustrating for all the teams and players involved. We started a new season in March 2020 and managed to play two games before everything was called to a halt, since then we've not managed to play a full season; when you consider a season for a 6 team division (we have two divisions) is 10 weeks that is quite astounding.

"The college had a brand new state of the art 3G pitch laid last year", Yardley continued, "It really is the best playing surface in the region, and feedback from teams has been great. Its just a shame they haven't been able to get a consistent run of games on it".

When you look at the current season results, Yardley's words ring true. A new season which began on 26th October (the first games since Covid-19 hit in March) managed just two rounds of fixtures before England's month long lockdown in November halted play. December saw easing of restrictions and 3 game weeks completed before the Christmas break, but as round 6 of games was being played on Monday 4th January, PM Boris Johnson was announcing yet another lockdown.

"I remember checking my phone as we walked off the pitch at the end of play that evening", Yardley told us, "I just turned to my refs and said, "See you in a couple of months", we knew what this meant. Again".

However, there is now light at the end of the tunnel with promise of a roadmap out of lockdown coming in 7 days time, and the clearest indications yet that 8th March will indeed see a full re-opening of schools. 

Mike Yardley is optimistic about the next restart, "This lockdown has probably been the worst one for everybody, but it's also been the most positive in the sense of the progress being made with the vaccination programme. It seems that every effort is being made to make this the last lockdown we have, and with the promise of all over 50's having their first vaccine by May, combined with the lower transmission in the summer months I think we can be confident that once we get out of this lockdown it is one-way travel to normality. I certainly don't see a fourth national lockdown coming".

Pushed on a re-start date for the league at Bishop Burton, Yardley was cautiously optimistic, "I'm also involved with grassroots kids football and from speaking to people, whilst everyone is fairly non-committal, they are also confident that once schools are back then football will follow closely behind. There seems to be a consensus that unless there is a set back we should be cleaning our boots for the end of March", 

"Dates are of course difficult to predict at this stage, but what I can say for definite is that we will be out there playing on the first Monday night we are allowed to", he confidently concluded.

So, whilst few expected this lockdown to go on for so long when PM Johnson made the announcement in the first week of January the reality is there is now cause for optimism, and within the coming weeks we will all be able to start planning for a return to football.

In the meantime, registration remains open for new teams to join the largest network of 5-aside, 6-a-side and 7-a-side football leagues in the world. 

The Beverley 6 a side leagues runs on Monday evenings, with kick offs at 7pm and 7:30pm, you can enter your team here -> https://www.leisureleagues.net/league/bishop-burton-college/beverley-monday

Follow Leisure Leagues Beverley on social media for all the latest updates:

Instagram: @leisureleaguesbeverley - https://www.instagram.com/leisureleaguesbeverley/

Facebook: @leisureleaguesbeverley - https://www.facebook.com/leisureleaguesbeverley/

Twitter: @EastYorks6aside - https://twitter.com/EastYorks6aside

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