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

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).

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.

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!

Moneys didn’t play a league game between March 7 and September 19, a gap of over six months. Their 2020/21 league season was paused at the beginning of November, with them having played just four games, and has yet to resume.

In the top two tiers of non-league football, clubs had to wait even longer between competitive games.

In the National League, the final league games of 2019/20 took place on March 14. The first game of 2020/21 was on October 6, the season having been delayed until then in the hope - a false one as it turned out - of supporters being allowed in.

Had Havant & Waterlooville not taken part in the National League South play-offs at the end of July, they would have gone almost eight months without a competitive fixture. That is what the pandemic did - and the Hawks are classified as ‘elite’ sport.

Pompey are still waiting to play their 2019/20 EFL Trophy final against Salford at Wembley, but they are not the only ones in that boat - the 2019/20 FA Trophy and FA Vase finals have still to be played as well. No date is yet known for any of those finals.

Could it be they take place after this season’s three finals? But that’s if the 2020/21 tournaments are not paused or - worst case scenario - binned. In the Vase, US Portsmouth are through to the last 32 and Fareham will join them if they win their delayed tie at Plymouth Parkway. But with those clubs now in tier 4 areas, who knows when they will next be allowed to continue on the road to Wembley?

Cricket was also badly affected by Covid-19. Normally, Hampshire would play 14 first class games in the Championship, eight Royal London one-day cup group ties and 14 T20 Vitality Blast group games - a minimum of 36 fixtures.

In 20202, they managed 15 - and in fairness the authorities did well to fit in five first class games in the Bob Willis Trophy and 10 Vitality Blast group games, plus the quarter-finals, semis and final - albeit all behind closed doors.

At grassroots level, the region’s leading Southern Premier League clubs such as Havant, Portsmouth and Sarisbury would usually take part in league seasons stretching over 17 Saturdays, from the beginning of May until the end of August.

This time, they had to make do with eight games in groups selected for geographical reasons to restrict travelling. A truncated season finally got underway in late July, ending later than usual in mid-September.

But at least the cricketers managed a few runs and wickets in 2020.

Spare a thought for our region’s rugby players.

Portsmouth had only played seven league matches in 2020 when their season was halted in early March. Havant, this area’s leading club, had played eight.

Havant’s last league game of 2020 was at Belsize Park on February 29. With the 2020/21 season already cancelled by the sport’s governing body, the RFU, they will have to wait until next September for their next taste of competitive action.

From February 2020 to September 2021 … that is a hell of a long wait in anyone’s book. Imagine going that long without playing your favourite sport?

Havant were top of their London 1 South league when the season was brought to a premature end. Showing common sense - there were only a few games left to play - the RFU proceeded with promotion and relegation using a points-per-game methodology.

That meant Havant could celebrate returning to the London South East Premier - the fifth tier of English rugby - after an eight-season absence. Well, obviously they couldn’t REALLY celebrate due to lockdown and social distancing. By the time they next play, that title win will be a distant memory ...

Local hockey leagues also rewarded success with promotion and punished failure with relegation, though in some Hampshire Leagues there were very few games remaining.

But their decision-making ensured promotion for US Portsmouth men’s 1sts and also a Hampshire League title for Portsmouth men’s 4ths - the first championship win in the newly-formed club’s history.

Sadly, such common sense was absent from the Football Association. With indecent haste, they cancelled all non-league football from steps 3-6 - locally, the Southern League Premier South down to Division 1 of the Wessex League.

Null and voiding all those leagues had a knock-on effect on the Hampshire League as well, as they could not promote any teams as none were coming down from the Wessex.

It was a controversial move by the governing body that left - and to be honest still leaves - a bitter taste in the mouth for many.

Enough games had been played for final positions to be decided by a points-per-game methodology. Scrapping so much football almost certainly cost clubs like US Portsmouth, Moneyfields - both men’s reserves and women’s first team - and Infinity promotion.

Having null and voided in 2019/20, the big question that FA could have to answer in the coming weeks and months is this: Do we null and void 2020/21 as well? As always, the fallout will be emotional.

Tennis players and golfers were among the first to be allowed back after the March lockdown restrictions were finally eased. The Portsmouth Winter Tennis League finally got going in the autumn, though without as many clubs as usual.

That is more than can be said for other sports, though - bowls, darts and snooker leagues stopped in March and, like parkrun, have never returned.

As the hours tick by to the end of a year we can’t wait to see the back of, all we can do is hope for a return to sporting normality at some point in the coming 12 months.

I would like to be more specific than ‘at some point’, but I can’t be. No-one can be.

All we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope that bowls, darts, snooker, rugby and parkrun all return to these very pages sooner rather than later.

It would be so very sad to have to write similar words in another 12 months’ time ...