SPECIAL FEATURE: Grassroots sport coping with a pandemic... Cogenhoe United FC

It has been a tough 10 weeks or so for grassroots sporting clubs across the area, with all activities suspended as part of the battle to get on top of Covid-19.

Thousands of people, young and old, have been denied the chance to play cricket, football, tennis, rugby, bowls and many other sports, but there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel as restrictions are carefully eased.

The main focus has unsurprisingly been on the major and professional sports getting back into action, behind closed doors, and in the UK the Premier League is set to resume in a couple of weeks, the Cobblers are on course to get back playing by the end of the month and Silverstone will stage two Formula One GPs in August.

But what about those grassroot sports clubs?

How has the pandemic and suspension of sport affected them over the past three months? How are they coping financially?

Today, the Chron publishes a series of online articles touching on how a selection of the area’s sporting clubs have dealt with the crisis, and their hopes, and fears, for the future.

Number four...

Cogenhoe United Football Club...

Cogenhoe United chairman Nigel Wagstaff is not going to let the coronavirus pandemic scupper the ambitous plans he has for the United Counties League club.

Wagstaff has been left frustrated by the suspension of football since the middle of March, and admits he can’t see a return to the competitive side of the sport at non-League or grassroots level for some while yet.

But he is not going to let that dampen his enthusiasm for the task ahead as he bids to restore the Cooks to where he believes they should be.

The UCL season was called null and void at the end of March, but that hasn’t stopped Wagstaff working on plans on and off the field at Compton Park.

The club, like all others, has taken a financial hit, particularly as they are unable to utilise their clubhouse, but grants from the Government, the Football Association and Sport England have helped to keep things ticking over.

“Normally if there is a period where something happens and you couldn’t play, at least the bar would still function and you could raise money through race nights, speakers evenings and other things that could bring money in,” said Wagstaff, who rejoined the Cooks as chairman in November - 37 years after managing the club in the Northants Combination.

“But once this virus struck and you have social distancing, then we lost everything.

“What any club has to do is try to still bring revenue in, whether it be grants or whatever, and also try to stop the taps running as well.”

And he added: “I am having to run my business from home at the moment (Wagstaff owns Houghton Hams), and too many people in football clubs think ‘we’ll lock it all up and one day we’ll come back and start it all up again’.

“That couldn’t be farther from the truth. You might come back and not be able to start it up and you have to look at ways of generating income.

“That is what we have to be doing, we have to be one step ahead and have a foundation in place for whenever the day may be that we can start playing again.

“I am very positive, because I have run a business for 37 years and I am very positive about everything. I see it as only being another set of hurdles we have to get over.”

One of the biggest hurdles non-League football clubs are going to face is when they are going to be allowed to play again.

“Every sport has its challenge, but at the beginning of June, with all of these restrictions and measures in place, how you can suddenly start playing football in August?,” said Wagstaff.

“You can do it at the professional level, but not at grass roots level.

“If I said to my manager and players ‘you are playing next Saturday’, they would all be there because they all want to play.

“But if every club and every area did that, would we get a second spike of the virus? That is the worry.”

So, is Cogenhoe in a good place to get through this Covid-19 crisis?

Wagstaff said: “I think we are in really good shape, and I think we are probably stronger now than we were when the season was on. We have managed to get grants in and have managed to get sponsors in.

“We have to be pro-active, and I have to run Cogenhoe United like I run my business, because it is a business.

“We have to have a business plan, and a structure, and we have to bring our youth in.”

When the season does get underway, it will be a much larger Cogenhoe set-up, as they have started a string of new youth teams.

“We are going to have eight new youth teams,” said Wagstaff.

“We have brought a load of new coaches in, and I am so confident with the work we have done over the past three or four months that we will be in good shape.

“We will survive through this, and we will come out the other end stronger, and more committed.

“How great is it for people connected with the club, that they can see we are very positive, we have our budget, we know what we have got to do and where we are going.

"If you underpin it all with a good youth set-up, good coaches and good planning, that will be a great platform for us to go forward.”