The story so far
For the second time this year, Workington Football Club accepts that their immediate future will be determined by politicians and not the manager, coaching staff or the Board of Directors.
A second national Lockdown kicked in on Thursday and football at Step 3 and below has been shelved until early December at least.
It left Danny Grainger hoping for the best on a restart but fearing the worst and one could sense the frustration in his voice when carrying out his media duties this week.
First and foremost, the club backs any Government guidance that may stop the Covid pandemic in its tracks but, purely from a football perspective, the uncertainty we experienced from March until August is back with us, leaving all to contemplate how the 2020-21 season will progress, if, indeed, it will.
Reds enjoyed a superb, albeit belated, pre-season but stuttered a little when the serious stuff got underway on the second Saturday in September.
Gradually, though, we began to make an impact whilst recognising that six important points had been dropped in our opening three league matches.
But five successive victories took us to the top of the table, briefly, and we occupy second spot now until whenever football gets the green light to resume.
The FA Cup campaign is over for another year with the setback at Radcliffe still hurting – we somehow squandered a 3-1 lead in that game for what remains our only defeat in another interrupted season.
Our main focus remains the league but we can also look forward to another Trophy away day and a trip to Nantwich Town, a ground where we have won in recent seasons.
Quite incredible that all four cup ties we have been involved in this term have been away. Indeed, we have played eight away games to date compared to just the four at home.
A major frustration for the manager has been the injuries we have experienced this season and fielding a regular, settled team has been almost impossible. Twenty seven different players have appeared on the team sheet already and only Dan Wordsworth and Liam Brockbank have started every game to date.
Dan, to his credit, has played every minute so far.
Our offensive players have all scored goals in the opening weeks and thirteen, in total, have got their names on the score sheet.
Clarification is still needed on how the restart will be implemented because communal training sessions are also banned for the duration.
Reds’ players trained together for the final time last Tuesday but will follow their own individual programmes for the next month or so.
The last thing we want is to resume on 2nd December and then be told to play at Marine a few days later – there has to be some preparation time and perhaps a warm-up game.
We go into this enforced break on the back of a 16 match unbeaten run in the league – eight wins prior to the first Lockdown and three draws and five wins this season. That sequence has been pieced together since the January defeat at Ramsbottom United, who went in to the second Lockdown as the North West Division leaders!
