IN the wake of the Queen’s death on Thursday, all football matches across the UK at the weekend were cancelled as a mark of respect.
Where pubs, stadiums and supporters’ clubs may have been spilling over with fans cheering on their teams, there was sombre non-stop news coverage of the royal family instead.
Several fans took to social media to voice their frustration with the decision to cancel football over the weekend, unhappy that their leisure activity had been ditched by the authorities.
Many were particularly angry that football had been cancelled since, in contrast, rugby, cricket and golf fans did not have their weekend sports cancelled.
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Reports emerged that this was because football fans “could not be trusted” to show respect for the late Queen and that a national embarrassment was being pre-empted.
Regardless, football fans and businesses that rely on them were put-out.
Motherwell fan and vlogger Gordon Bonnes creates online content that revolves around football. In pursuing his passion for the national game, he has amassed a Youtube following of nearly 11,000 subscribers.
He spoke with The National to discuss the cancellations and stressed how important the matches can be for fans' mental health.
He said: “I think it’s shocking. There are people who work hard for their living who have been stopped from getting their football fix at the weekends by watching the team they love every week. Just to have that stopped for one week is detrimental to their mental health.
"It’s not as bad as lockdown was but it gives a refresher that we still love having that one positive thing in our lives.”
"There will be plenty of other people with the same views I have.”
And with punters stuck at home, businesses took a hit as well. Malone’s in Glasgow is a bar that has a strong contingent of football fans amongst its regular customers. Michael Mullan, one of the managers, spoke of the effect no football had on the business.
He said: “My big issue was that the announcement was very short notice. We had to change the rota completely, we’re expecting people to be in at a certain time before and after games. We had to cancel musicians last minute.
“I understand that it’s a national event but to make the announcement that quickly didn’t give us any time to react and it cost us thousands of pounds.”
Mullan added that his bar regularly hosts a huge number of tourists who come to Glasgow solely for football matches, with many left disappointed over the cancellations.
He said: “A lot of people had just arrived off the planes and boats, I felt very sorry for them because they had spent a lot of money getting to Glasgow for the weekend and only to find there was nothing there for them.
“I think we could have had a minute’s silence or something along those lines, but rugby and cricket went ahead. That was a bit of a kick in the teeth. We show all sports in here. We show rugby and Gaelic football but the ones who are solely football fans, I think a lot of them felt punished.”
In what is likely to be of relief to Bonnes and Mullan, the SFA announced on Monday that Scottish matches will “resume as normal” this coming weekend.
Once again, Scotland will revel in its love of football.
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