GAP YEAR INEVITABLE SAY LIONS

Covid-19 restrictions ruin campaign

- Matt Badcock

GUERNSEY FC boss Tony Vance says it was inevitable that the Green Lions would have to take a Covid gap year.

The Channel Islanders have to sit out the 2020-21 season because of ongoing travel restrictions between them and the mainland.

Guernsey immediately shut its borders when the pandemic broke out and quickly eliminated the disease from their island.

While travel is now allowed, current restrictions mean anyone arriving must quarantine for at least seven days.

It means the Green Lions playing their Pitching In Isthmian Division One South East campaign just isn’t feasible.

Instead they will have to miss the season with their place at Step 4 safe for the 2021-22 campaign.

“It was absolutely inevtiable,” Vance told The NLP. “It was just a case of when the decision was going to be made. With the league starting this Saturday we’d already had one game postponed. There are no flights to and from Gatwick until mid-October at the earliest so straight away all those games are going to be called off.