Sport

The Boot Room: Getting the 'R' rate down is on us - and Stormont

Brendan Crossan

Brendan Crossan

Brendan is a sports reporter at The Irish News. He has worked at the media outlet since January 1999 and specialises in GAA, soccer and boxing. He has been the Republic of Ireland soccer correspondent since 2001 and has covered the 2002 and 2006 World Cup finals and the 2012 European Championships

The Stormont Executive must up its game to stave off another lockdown
The Stormont Executive must up its game to stave off another lockdown The Stormont Executive must up its game to stave off another lockdown

COACH Kevin McVeagh had to break the news to the 26 players of Cumann Spóirt an Phobail (CSP) Football for all Disability team on Wednesday night that they wouldn’t be training for the next four weeks because of lockdown restrictions.

Some of the players couldn’t understand why they had to stop meeting up. I know some of these young men struggled badly during the previous lockdown.

Like many grassroots clubs across the north, the coaching staff of CSP have jumped through hoops to ensure their outdoor training pitch just off the Ballymurphy Road was as safe as possible.

For the vast majority of these players it’s their only social outlet of the week. Meanwhile, shops, churches and gyms remain open.

And the off licences really got it between the eyes. They have to close by 8pm. There are restrictions, and then there are 8pm closures.

This new 8pm restriction barely merited a mention in the pick-and-mix lockdown the Stormont Executive conjured earlier in the week.

It was the kind of lockdown announcement that virtually guarantees another lockdown in a couple of months’ time.

And, remember, it’s on us as citizens to bring the ‘R’ rate down. Of course, it’s on us. Wear a mask. Wash our hands. Keep our distance.

It’s also on Stormont to produce a better roadmap, more effective track-and-trace apparatus, better strategic planning and much better messaging in dealing with this pandemic.

Last night, our own girls team finished up for four weeks.

We had our individual water bottle stations along the side of the pitch. We washed down the Samba nets. Sprayed the footballs and cones and collected the jerseys from the previous weekend.

And the parents socially distanced outside of the playing area. All the children arrived separately too.

The Covid Compliance Officer, a volunteering parent, sprayed each child’s hands before and after the session. The kids screamed and ran around kicking footballs for an hour.

We presented our two Player of the Week certificates and afterwards explained to the children that we’d be re-united soon.

All equipment was washed down and stored away until the next time. I have an acute understanding of the disappointment the children are feeling.

As one friend succinctly put it: “Can’t train or play small sided games but you can bring them all to the Abbeycentre [shopping mall].”

And then there is the whole ‘elite sport’ debate. If there’s a word that is sure to fracture opinion, it’s ‘elite’.

I would argue that to stage a small-sided football match in the great outdoors is far safer than staging an Irish League match.

The Irish Premiership is deemed ‘elite’ and therefore will go ahead as scheduled but the two divisions below it – the Championship and the Premier Intermediate Championship – are suspended for the time being.

Both fell short of 'elite' status.

Given the travelling, there is infinitely greater risk involved in proceeding with the inter-county championships than compared to a bunch of children training once weekly.

But let’s be clear, it is good for the mental well-being of people that local sport is being played, albeit at ‘elite’ level, both for supporters and participants.

Republic of Ireland manager Stephen Kenny posed various questions for sport trying to operate in a pandemic.

“Society must still continue to exist amidst crisis,” he said.

“You must try and live as normally as you can. Do you cancel everything? For how long do you cancel it? Do you cancel it until the vaccine is found? When is that? Nobody has the answer to that. Do you just give up?”

As for grassroots football, kids aren’t great lobbyists. They don’t bring a lot to the table only their innocence and their inarticulate desire to be looked after and protected.

Throw in a lockdown of schools and the kids here appear to have drawn the short straw, despite the findings of low transmission rates from the landmark ‘Covid Warrior’ study involving over 900 children whose parents were front-line workers and the similar consensus reached by the Chief Medical Officers from Northern Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales.

The problem is outside of schools – not the children - which requires strategic intervention from government because closing schools again and again cannot be passed off as everybody ‘doing their bit’ for society – it is as much a planning issue.

But that’s what this nonsensical lockdown does: it pits different sections of society against one another.

You can see it between public and private sector workers.

Naturally, in a pandemic, public sector employment is more secure than the private sector, many of whom in the latter category are hanging on by the skin of their teeth.

That’s where the greatest economic pain resides in these catastrophic times.

Throughout the raging discord, I hear Harry McConkey’s soothing words ringing in my ears: ‘The roots of morality lie in empathy.’

Sadly, empathy is in short supply. So we argue among ourselves, sneer at the mask wearers and the non-mask wearers, each of us with right on our side.

And the church goers and the non-church goers. The gym rats and those who would never darken a gym door.

Seven months into a pandemic, the efficiency of ‘track and trace’ and the messaging leaves a lot to be desired.

These critical shortcomings contributed to the restrictions imposed by Stormont earlier this week, including grassroots sports being suspended for four weeks.

Government planning needs to be more coherent otherwise we will lurch from one lockdown to another - and the football pitch and school gates will remain closed.