Clubs who refuse to re-open their doors run risk of turning fans against them

Hold on a second. What’s all this? We finally get some good news in the form of a go-ahead for people to be able to attend sporting events again and then the very businesses that have suffered so badly from months of closures warn they might decide to keep the gates locked.

We will find out today which venues fall into which tiers, which will decide how many people their can admit, but while racecourses will be among those to joyously fling open their doors and welcome the public back with as much warmth as social distancing rules permit, others say it will not be worth the bother.

Premier League football clubs are the most prominent organisations to have voiced their lack of excitement at the lights turning to green for reopen. In reality many are likely to find themselves in Tier 3 and thus unable to let the turnstiles click until local Covid infection rates decline, but a number of those that will have the option to let in 2,000 or 4,000 are said to be taking the view that it will not be worth the bother because they have a break-even figure of 10,000 so have no desire to lose money.

There are also suggestions Twickenham will, for the same reason, continue to be empty for England’s remaining autumn fixtures.

While it is easy to feel sympathy for all businesses during these difficult times, even ones that pay their reserve left-back 50 grand a week, if they do refuse to let the turnstiles spin again when they are allowed to accommodate crowds of any size it will be a massive slap in the face for those of us who have missed live football so acutely.

Yes, there are bound to be additional costs to making grounds meet safety criteria, and no, the lack of approval to sell alcohol will not help with matchday revenues. But the money continues to roll in from Sky and BT so it should not even be a matter for debate whether or not grounds open, however small the temporary capacity.

Clubs are also said to be unhappy about the lack of a clear government roadmap to the full reopening of stadia, but that is an unrealistic expectation. The handling of the pandemic challenge has not been perfect by any means, but anyone in power who currently feels they have the scope to concoct a precise timetable for ensuring Premier League football grounds return to maximum capacity is managing their priorities badly.

Things are looking up. Politicians are talking about a return to normality by Easter, so unless something goes badly wrong with the plan to administer vaccines to enough people to put this nightmare behind us clubs should be fairly safe to budget for business as usual from the start of next season.

And in that case they should not be hesitating to welcome back as many of their loyal customers as possible at the earliest opportunity, which for some will be next weekend.

Fortunately, further down the football pyramid and right across the British sporting landscape there will be places where the paying public will be extremely welcome, and if my club does not want to stomach minimal financial losses to let supporters back in, I shall find a lower division or non-league team to spend some money with.

As for racing, it feels good to know we can shortly scan the fixture list for the next suitable opportunity to get along to savour the experience once again. It has been a long time coming.

While we are still some way from Saturday meetings being allowed to host a full quota of racegoers, the new limits should ensure many midweek fixtures are as well attended as they used to be - and that will hopefully be enough to remove the threat of course closures that has been lingering in the dark skies overhead for so long.

Trolling of Tyler is way off target

Martin Tyler was trending on Twitter the other day, which for those of you lucky enough not to know what that means, indicates there were lots of people writing stuff about him.

So I checked it out just to make sure he was okay, and saw that the reason for the increase in the amount of mentions the Sky football commentator was receiving was due to a bizarre and unpleasant torrent of criticism being aimed his way.

This just underlines that there is nobody good enough to avoid the wrath of Twitter users. I scrolled in amazement and disgust at some of the moronic, nasty and plain wrong things people were saying about him after he had finished covering a match.

A recurring theme was that Tyler is biased towards Liverpool. I have listened to him for roughly 35 years and never once detected that.

He may support a particular team but I have never sensed the slightest hint of favouritism in his calls, just sensible, accurate, interesting and best of all inoffensive descriptions of what is happening.

Tyler is an outstanding commentator and will be missed when he is no longer gracing the gantries, but while I have never found his work to be tainted by a leaning towards Liverpool, there was certainly no shortage of praise for the club from elsewhere in the media after they had seen off Leicester on Sunday.

While Jurgen Klopp’s side deserve the highest praise for what they have achieved in the past two seasons, it cannot be said they have suffered bad luck with, or even their fair share of, injuries in that time.

That is one of the reasons why they have been so successful, although not as significant as their fine recruitment, sparkling performances and tremendous manager.

But a team cannot keep so many players fit for ever and in the past couple of weeks the treatment room has been filling up, meaning Klopp had to give a rare start to a couple of youngsters against Leicester and was without around five or six of his best starting 11.

The way the media reported the personnel problem, though, you would have thought anyone who had played more than a dozen times had been sidelined and that Klopp was on the verge of sticking Adrian up front.

Far less was made of Leicester’s equally damaging injury situation, something that has affected them for much longer than it has Liverpool.

Thankfully, while others claimed this was one of the most heroic triumphs of recent times, it was left to former Anfield star Jamie Carragher to point out during the game that Leicester’s chances of victory had been hit just as hard as Liverpool’s by big-name players being crocked.

You never know, perhaps Carragher learned a thing or two about being so commendably unbiased by working alongside Martin Tyler.

Time to stop dwelling on freak mishaps

Are we all done with the inquests into the spate of misfortunes and odd occurrences that struck racing in a weirdly short period recently? I hope so.

A fuzzy photo-finish print in the Cheltenham gloom, jockeys mistakenly taking evasive action before jumping a Fontwell hurdle rather than after it and a disqualification because a jockey took a wrong turn after a race at Taunton were far from ideal, coming as they did within four days of each other.

But the reaction has been excessive and prolonged, and it is time many of those who love the sport stopped fretting about its future whenever something goes wrong.

There are certain cock-ups that genuinely annoy me, such as a failure to scan horses’ microchips correctly so that the right animals run under their correct identity.

Other things are just bound to happen once in a blue moon, though, and we must stop thinking the sport is about to be laughed out of existence by the wider world when they do.

Obviously, we need to learn lessons and, when genuine negligence has taken place, hold people to account, but racing has been putting on a superb show since the first Covid lockdown and it is important to acknowledge and celebrate that rather than focus on the occasional moment when things go awry.

Figures relating to betting turnover and ITV audiences paint a hearteningly healthy picture and those who are tuning in to watch the sport or bet on it for the first time are far more likely to remember brilliant moments like Bristol De Mai storming to victory in the Betfair Chase than a dead-heat being called because it was too dark to split the front two.

Besides, while racing’s hiccups generally happen extremely rarely, football is ruined by the lunacy of VAR and crazy new handballs every other game yet everyone seems to have just accepted this is its new reality.

Not got a bet365 account? Sign up today and get up to £100 in bet credits.

Up to £100 in Bet Credits for new customers at bet365. Min deposit £5. Bet Credits available for use upon settlement of bets to value of qualifying deposit. Min odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Time limits and T&Cs apply.

CLAIM OFFER HERE

MORE FREE BETS

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport

Like us on Facebook RacingPostSport