Express & Star comment: Football community doing their bit
They're not on the pitch, but the football community has found another way to play.
With there being no games for the supporters to enjoy, the support is now the other way round – football in our region is providing support for the NHS, for communities, and in the fight against the pandemic.
The Wolves Foundation is the official charity of Wolves, its aims being to use the power of sport to motivate, educate and inspire people in our local communities to improve their life chances.
Coronavirus has meant many of its activities have been put on hold. But in football you have to play what is in front of you, and adapt your tactics accordingly, and that is what has happened. It is finding new ways to do its good works, and finding new good works to do – one is providing support to those affected most by the outbreak.
When it comes to helping out in the pandemic, everybody can be in the Premier League. A highly visible contribution at Shrewsbury Town is the appointment-only drive-through Covid-19 assessment centre set up in the car park at the club's ground on the outskirts of the county town.
Telford United are doing their bit, West Brom manager Slaven Bilic, alongside his players, has picked up the phone to chat with fans aged over 70 to lift their spirits, although no doubt if they thought they were being called up for the new season he had to find a way of letting them down gently.
Efforts such as these are not peculiar to football. Other sports are chipping in as well.
Top level football is inhabited by highly paid stars, but the clubs are rooted in their communities, and with their good works they are reinforcing those roots.
When the coronavirus crisis broke, Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp said: "Football always seems the most important of the least important things. Today, football and football matches really aren’t important at all."
They were wise and dignified words. In the context of a pandemic, football in not important. But the way football has responded is important.
Against coronavirus, it's too early to declare the win. But it's been a good performance.
