A record-breaking start to a year we will never forget – a look back at local sport in 2020

Local cricket started on July 18 - here, Havant 1sts take on Portsmouth & Southsea prior to the start of a new-look and truncated Southern Premier League season. Picture by Ian Hargreaves.

It was a record-breaking start to a sporting year that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.

Just a few hours into 2020, almost one thousand people took part in the 241st Lee-on-the-Solent parkrun.

A record turnout for the venue of 987 was 473 up on the entry list at the 240th event held just three days earlier.

Elsewhere, on January 1, 2020, there were record parkrun turnouts at Fareham (484), Whiteley (460), Lakeside (429) and Havant (366).

Tennis players from Canoe Lake and Alverstoke line-up before a Portsmouth Winter League game.

Who would ever have imagined only 11 more parkruns would take place in the year, with Lee’s 252nd (and so far last) event held on Saturday, March 7.

Two days earlier, an unnamed woman in her 70s had passed away at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading - Britain’s first Covid-19 death that was made public.

Tens of thousands more have since followed, and the death toll is still rising. Who can honestly say when Lee-on-the-Solent will hold their 253rd parkrun? It if takes place before the one-year anniversary of their last, it will be a surprise.

Due to the pandemic and a variety of lockdowns, non-league football seasons were cancelled and grassroots sport was decimated in 2020.

Rudi Plummer, left, in action for Moneyfields against AFC Totton on New Year's Day - one of only 15 Southern League games the club would play in 2020. Pic: Ian Hargreaves.

Nine months on from the first lockdown, and non-league seasons are currently paused again, and grassroots sport is STILL being decimated.

The stats make sorry reading. In the year 2019, obviously spread over two seasons, Gosport Borough FC played 41 Southern League games and Moneyfields FC played 36.

In 2020, Gosport played only 18 and Moneyfields just 15. And of the latter’s meagre total, 13.3 per cent of them - two matches - were played in the first four days of 2020!