But while there are autumn evenings like the one at Hallam FC on Tuesday then it can seem for a moment as though everything is as per normal in life and football.
Sandygate, standing high above Sheffield in the Crosspool district, hosted a first league game of the season for The Countrymen with Retford the visitors to the world's oldest ground.
Adult admission remains a fiver but your money is no longer passed over to the gateman but transferred electronically online to secure a ticket before they go off sale.
With a maximum attendance of 300 and the extra regulations in place to allow games to go ahead, selling tickets online only allows Hallam to then be confident in the knowledge of how many are coming and who they are.
Apart from the initial changes, giving your name to the friendly volunteers and scanning a QR code for track and trace, the experience was familiar and welcoming with the bar open and small groups engaged in conversation about football and many other topics beside.
Interestingly I bumped into a handful of people who work in the same office, a mixed group of Owls and Blades, who were at Sandygate for the first time and enjoying the laid-back, beer-in-hand vibe.
Given the announcement earlier in the day about spectators at matches higher up, I'm sure they and others will be back as the season progresses.
Good news for Hallam but no club will be completely safe from the impending storm that is surely coming as the effects of a season played in front of empty stands (or not played at all as is a possibility in the National Leagues with the knock-on effects that will have lower down) become clearer.
On the pitch I thought the referee had a good game (despite what the players thought) and when both sides concentrated on the football after a niggly first-half, the second 45 kept the crowd of 281 entertained as the spoils were shared two-apiece.
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