Why now?

I haven’t posted for a while, almost a year in fact. The current events have prompted me to dust the keyboard off. Writing helps me make sense of what is happening. I find it helps me to order my thoughts.

Like 99.9% of the world’s population, the virus known as Coronavirus, Covid-19, or SARS-CoV-2 has dominated my thoughts for the past week. This post will probably contain all the advertised, random thoughts, ramblings and a rant or two as well.

Football (and sport in general) the first casualty

Important things first. Football has been suspended, as have almost all other sports. All of cycling’s spring classics have been canceled. There is no horse racing, the Masters golf tournament has been postponed and the cricket season seem unlikely to start. Football should restart on the 3rd of April. I will be very surprised if it restarts then. I don’t see this being over or even under control until the end of June at the earliest. The footballing powers think the season can be completed. This is because the Euros have been postponed until 2021. I don’t see it myself. My feeling is that the season will be abandoned.

This also means that I have probably watched my last AFC Wimbledon game at Kingsmeadow. If we had known that our game against Bolton was going to be the last, we might have planned differently. We could have organized something special. Our new stadium, in Plough Lane, should be ready for next season. The work may be delayed, especially if London is put into full lockdown. For the time being, we have an opening date of the 29th of August. It happens to be my birthday.

We had planned a celebration for the final game of the season against Coventry. But, it seems it is not going to happen now. We will just have to make do with this video that the club have produced.

The ground is too small for us. It is more than shabby. It can take forever to get served at the bar. The sight lines, especially from the Rygas terrace are horrendous. We know all that. It has been home for the past eighteen years. It has helped us grow from a mad idea into a professional club. We now play in EFL League One. We are still fan owned. Watch the video. Discover why some of us will shed a tear. Even though we are all glad to be heading back to Plough Lane.

I’ll leave my thoughts there for tonight. I will come back to them tomorrow. I will try to work out my feelings about what this virus means.