So here we are…

It is with a heavy heart that we feel that now is the time to put Ballers on hold for the foreseeable future. This has not been an easy decision to make, Ballers is my only source of income and we really don’t know how long this is going to go on for, but the health of the local community has to come first.

Yesterday the FA responded to the governments half hearted call for people to maybe consider not doing some things, by taking the decisive action to cancel all grassroots football.

While we were hoping that the governement would provide the required guidance in this situation to create a scenario where we had no choice but to shut our leagues down for now, they provided several shades of grey and effectively put the onus on small business owners (pubs, restaurants) to make a call with two possible outcomes.

You could choose the first one, where you remain open in an attempt to survive financially, but come across as putting short term profit ahead of the health and safety of your customers and the wider population until forced to do otherwise, or choose the second one whereby you voluntarily close down and have no money coming in at all and no government support.

In my opinion, it’s a disgrace. What small business owners needed more than anything at the minute is clarity and support, not difficult decisions that can affect their long term chances of financial and (potentially) literal survival.

Thankfully the FA have stepped up, and we support whatever needs to be done at this time to ensure that as many people as possible have the best chance of coming out of this on the other side.

Other businesses out there who offer something very similar to us may intend to carry on regardless, however we absolutely do not want to be seen as being irresponsible. This thing is just getting started. We had a number of teams cancel their games yesterday as they had lads who were ill or in self isolation, and it’s only going to get worse. If we were to continue running leagues you can pretty much guarantee that within a week we’d have lads playing there who had the virus, whether they knew it or not.

Hopefully when this is all over and we are ready to get going again, people will remember who it was that put their customers health first!

We will be back, hopefully sooner rather than later. Let’s face it, there’s not going to be any other suitable jobs out there for anyone like me at the minute!

Please take care of yourselves and each other, and please treat this situation with the seriousness it deserves. The one plus point for us is that by the time this is all over we can only imagine that everyone will be busting for a game of football!

In the meantime I’m going to pick up that dusty guitar and spend the next few months seeing if I can actually get any good at playing it…

See you all soon!

Mike

With the current pandemic doing the rounds, things could literally change on a day to day basis. As of today, Sunday 15th March, here is where we currently stand.

All games remain on as normal, and in some parts are being actively encouraged as partaking in excercise helps protect the body from viral disease. If and when the government make the step up to the next level, that’s when things will almost undoubtedly change.

The current understanding is that you have to be within 2 metres of someone who has the illness for a period of 15 minutes in order for you to be in danger of picking up the virus. We don’t believe that happens in a game of football, and therefore games can go ahead as normal.

What we do ask is that any players from any teams who are displaying the symptoms of a dry cough and a fever should not come down to the centre as a precaution. If this means in the short term that we end up losing a few more games than normal as teams struggle to find the numbers, so be it.

One other thing, in an ideal world we would want as many players as possible to either pay by card or contactless payment, or to bring the correct payment to avoid potential transfer via handling of money. At least at the end of the night we can wash our hands after we’ve done our banking!

We are determined to be as responsible as we can throughout this difficult time. In the short term future people may not have the freedom to do as many things as they normally would due to the risks involved, but for now we think that what we offer doesn’t offer up the same level of risk as some of these other things, so fill your boots!