The Next Step

Clubs from the Highland League to the Western League have had to quickly find new ways of raising money and many have been successful in their aims, getting together the cash needed to get themselves through to what would normally be the end of the season and in some sort of shape for the summer, usually a lean time anyway in terms of money coming in.

Just this week I have seen tweets from Melksham Town and Tooting & Mitcham United thanking supporters for meeting their fundraising target, a succesful afternoon for Workington AFC's 'live' screening of a 1958 FA Cup tie and many more good news stories.

The great unknown, of course, is when the 2020/21 season lower down the leagues will actually begin, what format it will take if it does and whether supporters will be allowed in to watch games if they do take place.

At the moment in England, with the Premier League due to re-start on 17 June, the Championship and potentially League One to follow, the focus is all on the top level of the game and there is precious little information about what will happen lower down.

In Scotland, although the move to end the SPFL season was done in a shambolic way it has allowed thoughts to turn to when the new season will begin and allow some hope in the lower leagues that there will be a 2020/21 campaign after all.

Northern Premier League chairman Mark Harris wrote an excellent article in last weekend's Non-League Paper about what the future holds and making it clear that the solutions will have to come from within as he warned: 'only the most naïve would truly believe that the professional game would act in tandem with Non-League.'

Whatever the next step entails I'm sure that clubs will approach it with the same sense of determination and innovation that they have shown so far.