THERE is never any shortage of things to worry about during this new fad for video calls. First of all, nobody really needs a visual reminder permanently sitting there in the corner of the screen of just how rough and unkempt they look in these days of minimal personal grooming. How barbers aren’t considered key workers I will never know.

Secondly, there is also connection-related angst. Often it is difficult to discern whether someone’s Wi-Fi has temporarily dipped or they are really milking the drama before answering like in those reality TV shows where the winners are announced after the biggest pause since Gentle Ben took a growth spurt. Make a decision for goodness sake.

It is a similar story when trying to discover what children might like to eat for lunch on any given day. Really, there aren’t that many options. Sandwiches or soup. Maybe a toastie or a baked potato. Choose one. No, you don’t need extra time to think with it. Just get on with it.

Scottish football has been similarly procrastinating of late, seemingly unable to make decisions on its future. Granted, there have been plenty of issues needing to be ironed out but there can be no argument that enough time have not been devoted to doing so.

There are only so many occasions clubs can go back and forth in a seemingly

never-ending game of statement tennis.

Eventually, you just need to get on with it. And, mercifully, it looks like there will finally be closure on the 2019/20 season in the coming days when the SPFL board will, surely, announce that the Premiership campaign can finally be called.

Of course, what has unfolded has been wholly unfair on some clubs. Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer can have legitimate gripes about being relegated without being given the chance to save themselves on the park. And their form prior to the season being frozen is completely irrelevant, too. Strange things often happen in the closing weeks when a team is scrapping for its life.

There will be arguments – less vocal but still inevitable – that Celtic and the other three division winners did not deserve to be crowned champions as they didn’t fulfil their fixtures. Again, it will need to remain in the field of the hypothetical. These are the best solutions to an unfixable problem.

If playing this season to its conclusion is not an option (and it would have been my preference) then it makes sense to wrap it up as quickly as possible to allow everyone’s attention to turn to how best to shape an uncertain future. Constantly arguing about what has or hasn’t happened can’t go on unchecked forever. Eventually a decision has to be made, even if it is not to everyone’s satisfaction.

Forward planning must

take priority now. The extension of the UK government’s furlough scheme was very welcome news for clubs but that must be tempered with the acknowledgement that we are no closer to setting a start date for the new season. And the longer clubs go on without money coming in through the turnstiles, the more of a concern that will become.

The unpopular option of closed-doors football needs to be explored further, too, to see if there is any way to make the numbers add up.

Players whose contracts are about to expire also need clarity as they prepare to head into the unemployed ranks, many for the first time in their careers.

There are no easy answers to any of these issues but they need to become the focus of the SPFL and all its clubs from this week on. The decision to call this season will not be easy or universally popular. But it needs to be done.

TOOK a tramp over the two golf courses in my neighbourhood this past fortnight. He wasn’t happy about it but the exercise will no doubt have done him good.

Anyway, there was something quite liberating about strolling around Royal Barshaw and Ralston, marching up and down the wide expanse of lush fairway and skirting carefully around the bunkers and greens. No, kids, you can’t play in the giant sand pit.

Ascending the steep incline to the top of the fourth hole at Barshaw and the second tee at Ralston afforded terrific panoramic views of the Paisley skyline and beyond to Glasgow and the rolling countryside in the background. It was quite the tonic.

Bounding down one particular hole, however, brought a moment of clarity. The reason for the carefree, jaunty stride was not the fresh air or the brief escape from lockdown – much as both were very welcome. No, this heightened state of relaxation had arisen simply because for the first time I was traversing these fairways without a club in my hand.

As thousands of keen golfers eagerly returned to courses in England this week – and many more up here desperately await the chance to do the same – for sporadic hackers like myself the very notion is enough to spark a wave of anxiety amid recollections of hours spent foraging through bushes and trees looking to retrieve wayward drives and misplaced approach shots, and the myriad curses offered to the heavens. What a frustrating pursuit it can be. A good walk spoiled indeed.