Spectator sports, the football Premier League season postponed until further notice.

Spectator sports, the football Premier League postponed until further notice.

It hardly seems possible but it's true. All public gatherings and sporting spectacles will now be postponed until further notice. The shocking news was announced to gasps of disbelief and stunned amazement. The Premier League, Championship, Leagues One and Two and Scottish Premier League  will now be hidden away from view because the epidemic and now pandemic coronavirus has struck its biggest blow into the heart of not only football but all manner of events where sport attracts its biggest audiences.

Even now it is hard to believe that for roughly three weeks - or perhaps longer- all of those highly anticipated sporting perennials will have to go on hold at least until such time as vaccines are to be found for what is slowly turning into the most frightening setback to both the remainder of the Premier League season and of course a whole variety of sports where huge droves of people gather.

Next month of course the London Marathon was once again scheduled to take place on the friendly streets of London, a force for good and the most unifying of influences where some of the finest long distance athletes pit their wits against a whole host of diligent club runners. Then there are  the inevitable procession of colourful costumes and frivolous souls who just love to dress up for the day.

But for football in Britain and across the world, the lack of any football may leave some of us with more than just a case of pining for a lost friend. This is one of those unprecedented developments within the game that none of us could have legislated for under any circumstances. Football is sometimes a matter of routine and habit for most football supporters and when that continuity is suddenly halted by a major health issue it is hard to find any of the appropriate words to soothe the fevered brow.

It should be pointed out that this is not the end of the world for football nor should this ever be considered as such. But the facts are simple. Liverpool are literally hours away from wrapping up their first Premier League title and their first League title of any description since 1990. But quite incredibly, fate may come to rob them of their most triumphant moment at Anfield for a number of generations.

Even now Liverpool's personable boss Jurgen Klopp must be hoping and wishing desperately that the corona virus will just leave these shores as quickly as possible. The intervention of a devastating global pandemic is the last thing football needs at a time during the season when critical relegation and promotion battles are resolved. We are now into the final stages of a ridiculously one sided Premier League season where the red of Liverpool have followed in the identical footsteps of their sky blue North West neighbours Manchester City in clinching the Premier League title before the first cuckoos of spring.

Usually football seasons are normally interrupted by the weather. In the 1962- 63 season the old First Division was trapped by the deepest of wintry freezes. From just before Christmas to early springtime football was frozen out by incessant snow, thick piles of snow which signified a complete lockdown of the game for weeks and months. By the time Manchester United beat Leicester City in the 1963 FA Cup Final the first daffodils had just appeared in parks and gardens across Britain.

But this time a health pandemic has rendered the game motionless, helpless in the face of something the FA or the rest of us can have no control over. The questions have to be asked and then answered. Is there any point in resuming the Premier League season at the beginning of April when quite clearly it has to be recognised that the season will have to be drawn out until at least the end of May or maybe early June?

How will the FA set out a plan of action where both players and managers will have to be both mentally and emotionally prepared for those make or break, end of season tussles? When will the FA Cup Final be pencilled in for now? What about those vital, money spinning promotion play offs, the glut of friendlies before England's European Championship campaign which could be postponed until next year now. It all begins to look impossibly crowded and complicated. In a hidden corner of Soho Square you suspect that some of the most influential FA movers and shakers are trembling with panic and fear.

There remains the distinct possibility of course that even if the Premier League does come out of its current crisis it may have to play its matches behind closed doors. Now the prospect of watching the final nail biting games of the season against a backdrop of no fans and empty terraces just doesn't seem imaginable. It is rather like asking enthusiastic theatre goers to stay at home rather than watch a memorable West End musical in their hundreds and thousands every week of the night.

Here we are though at the start of a three week footballing hiatus, a haunting, chilly silence will descend and the predominant emotion is incredulity. For almost a month now the learned commentators, the thought provoking pundits, the TV talking heads, the radio phone in callers from far and wide, will be passing on their considered and at times irrational remarks on why, how and if the game can ever be the same again. Of course they're frustrated, of course they're biting their tongues because they are the ones who spend enormous amounts of hard earned money to travel around the country with their team and then deliver complaints over and over again when it all goes wrong again.

This could prove to be a fascinating study in football fans body language and behaviour. Do they just sit at home and quite possibly think what might have been or do they occupy their Saturday afternoon in the pub reflecting on halcyon days past when everything in football had an air of certainty and finality about it? Maybe they'll retire to the bookmakers and just stare at the TV screens as the horsey racecourses of Britain try to salvage the broken wreckage of a day without football. Or perhaps they'll accompany their girlfriends and wives on that long awaited expedition to the shops and department stores of Britain?

And what treats will lie in stores for our handsomely paid footballers. Will they pass the day communicating with their social media acquaintances, fixing shelves or perhaps painting the walls in all manner of garish colours. There is a great deal of time to be usefully taken up with whatever their choice of activity is. Some with time on their hands may resort to the papers or magazines for the latest kiss and tell stories about their fellow colleagues. Perhaps they may decide to scribble derogatory tales about their fellow professionals night time habits.

For the BBC though legions of Match of the Day followers may have to forego their weekly diet of short snippet highlights because tomorrow will reveal nothing but a barren wasteland, a yawning gap in the schedules, no pretty passing movements, no clever team stratagems, no opinionated managers and coaches, no controversial VAR decisions and nothing on that hallowed green pitch. Sadly, football will now have to take what we hope will become a temporary break although three weeks could come to feel like a lifetime for those devoted masses of fans. It's often said that a week in politics does have a similar effect on most of us. We can only hope that normal service is resumed as soon as possible.