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Sept 2020

Last Updated: 24/09/2020

Indoor sports clubs face uncertain future under changing covid rules

by Suzannah Rogerson

| 24 Sept, 2020

Indoor sports, involving more that six people, are banned from today under new covid restrictions. Harrogate indoor cricket league and a cheer squad have had to suspend training.

Cricket stock.

Indoor sports clubs say they can only hope they'll be able to reopen after changes to government guidelines forced them to close their doors.

Any indoor sport with more than six adult participants has now been banned from today, after being exempt from the 'rule of six' introduced last week.

In Harrogate, some indoor sports clubs say the future looks "worrying" as they don't know when they'll be able to re-open - or whether their members will return.

Andy Hawkswell, founder of Harrogate Indoor Cricket League, said:

"It was a bit of a shock and of course very disappointing. We had 14 to 16 teams playing in the league this year - the demand was high because the summer season was halved.

"It's worrying that after having so much time off, they may not come back. For a lot of the players, there is a huge social aspect to the game and they will miss out on that now.

"Unfortunately it'll probably be a year out and we'll have to hope there's enough interest for next year if people return."

Megan Fairweather runs the Fire and Ice Cheerleading squad in Harrogate. It is a youth team, but some members are over 18 so the exclusions still apply.

The squad was only set up in September 2019, leaving Megan without financial support. She worries that with further delays the members won't return.

She said:

"We haven't been open since March - we were planning to reopen this week but we've had to cancel that. The government has come out with a list and because cheerleading isn't registered as an official sport yet, it wasn't put on the list.

"It's a lot more complicated because it's a contact sport. Even if we were to open with just strength and conditioning training some of the troop may drop it because they come to do stunts and they can do those at their gymnastics or dance classes."