This morning Malachy Clerkin has written the first edition of a new weekly column, which will be published each Friday - a whole new ball game. And he kicks off by suggesting that sport - as much as we miss it - will be among the last of the normal things to return, as we hopefully return to normal later in the year. He writes: "Sport will come back slowly, carefully and in stop-start phases because that's how the world is going to be behaving over the next year or so. Organised sport is a function of a settled society. It can only happen in ordinary circumstances. It will be the last duck in the row."
Today's favourite sporting moment sees Ruaidhrí Croke reminisce about his football team Shelbourne earning promotion from Division One to the Premier Division last season. 13-times champions Shels had spent 11 of the previous 13 seasons in the wilderness of the second tier, but a 3-1 win over Drogheda on Friday September 13th 2019 saw them return to the big time. He writes: "But wait, Lorcan Fitzgerald is running through on goal and he's poked it past the goalkeeper and it's rolling into the net and is this really happening? Have Shels really done this? Surely something is going to happen to take this away from us? But it doesn't. It has happened. It's finished 3-1 and all of a sudden Reds fans are flooding the pitch and the weight of dread has been lifted. The resurrection has become very real."
Andrew Conway's isolation diary continues this morning, with the Ireland winger discussing the various ways he is passing the time at home. A keen reader, he cites Andy Lee's book 'Fighter' as one of his favourites, and recalls a chance meeting with the former middleweight world champion while out walking his dog. He writes: "Liz and I took Sadie, our bulldog, down by the river about six months ago. We crossed the bridge that's part of our trail and I looked back to see a fella entering the bridge from the other side. 'Jeez,' I thought. 'That looks like Andy Lee.' On our second lap he was in the middle of the bridge and as we were walking past he said: 'Hey Andrew, how's it going?'"
Meanwhile Premier League clubs are set to meet later today, as they bid to outline a way of completing the 2019-20 season. The issue of players' wages will also be discussed, with the PFA indicating top flight players would be willing to pay the wages of non-playing colleagues if clubs can show there is a genuine need for them to do so, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The newly-appointed director of public health for the city of Liverpool, Matthew Ashton, has said the Champions League clash between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid at Anfield - which saw the hosts dumped out of the competition - should not have gone ahead. The match took place on March 11th with 3,000 away supporters making the trip, with Madrid a centre for the spread of the virus.
And the Jockey Club have defended the decision to go ahead with the Cheltenham Festival, with a number of racegoers subsequently contracting Covid-19. More than 200,000 people attended the four-day event which started on March 10th.
