Club Update

On a weekend that should have seen in normal times the opening ties of the Betfred Cup herald the start of a new campaign in Scotland, a wee update for ‘Loons’ fans on plans being made for the 2020/21 season.

It is now some seventeen weeks since the ‘Loons’ last kicked a ball in anger at Starks Park, but thankfully we now all going well have an October date with destiny to look forward to.

Saturday the 17^th of October is the date set for the start of a 27 match League One campaign with Betfred ties at present only pencilled in for earlier that month, sandwiched in between international fixture dates.

This in all probability means that clubs like Forfar Athletic will be looking to play a few pre-season fixtures commencing around the last weekend in September.

To this end, Stuart Malcolm has set a date of Tuesday, September 1^st for the commencement of training and the club has set up a subcommittee to put the ever-evolving arrangements in place to make this happen.

Stuart is also working hard to rebuild his squad with further signing news hopefully due to be released later this week.

Rest assured fans will be kept up to date when confirmation of any friendly fixtures come to hand along with dates for the release of league fixtures by the SPFL or a date for the draw for the League Cup competition.

Of course, the big question is whether supporters will be allowed access to these games and if so what restrictions in either numbers or entry criteria may be put in place.

There are rumours in the press of ‘test’ fixtures in various sports with spectators present taking place in late August, but no confirmation of this has been forthcoming from either the government or sporting organisations.

Scotland’s Clinical Director the eloquent Jason Leitch has also hinted that October could indeed see limited supporter presence at outdoor sporting events.    This would be the reason one would assume that for example the first Old Firm game of the season has been scheduled for week eleven of the Premiership, the middle weekend of October and also the latest possible date available to the fixture planners.

Back to our own ‘back yard’ and the Forfar Athletic Directors have been heartened by the number of enquiries that they have had in regard to season ticket sales.

As has been mentioned previously it is not possible to consider the sale of seasons at this juncture.   Firstly we do not know whether we will have fourteen or thirteen home league games instead of the normal eighteen, in addition to the uncertainties mentioned above, this all making putting a pricing structure in place impossible.

We ask you all to bear with us in the circumstances that prevail.

Similarly, the Club Secretary has had numerous enquiries since the start date was officially announced in regard to matchday hospitality.

Again provisional bookings cannot be considered at present, simply due to the fact that we do not know if this will be permitted cometh the time and again the obvious effect social distancing will have on numbers if still in force.

As all will know Bars and Restaurants can open their doors to the public as from Wednesday of this week and hopefully this much looked forward to relaxation of the lockdown will go smoothly and be reflected in football clubs ability to roll out the ‘red carpet’ to guests come the Autumn.

Obviously, if demand is at the usual level and that is not guaranteed in these unusual times, then there are going to be some disappointed prospective customers who are going to have to endure missing out for one season due to the truncated fixture list, but again this is all conjecture at this point.

A final point and another disappointing note for the club.   The Directors came to the conclusion at their Board Meeting last week that they had no other option than to ‘pull the plug’ on another popular fundraising function. 

The return of ‘Sneaky Treacle’ the popular West of Scotland based band to the Reid Hall scheduled for early September will not go ahead due to current circumstances.    Hopefully, twelve months on they will return.