Bonnyrigg Rose feel the pinch but back the suspension of football

Bonnyrigg Rose have laid out the financial impact of the season being indefinitely suspended due to the coronavirus

As Bonnyrigg battled for the Lowland League title, New Dundas Park was poised for bumper gates, but now they may remain closed.

The SPFL, after discussions with the Scottish FA, made the decision to postpone all of the weekend’s matches on Friday night. That was followed by the news that football in Scotland would be suspended indefinitely.

This includes the Lowland League, in which Bonnyrigg are hunting down Kelty Hearts at the top of the table. Robbie Horn’s men are six points behind with a game in hand and six games left to play.

With a home game against Kelty in a top-of-the-table clash previously scheduled for a week on Saturday, along with the rest of Bonnyrigg’s home fixtures, hanging in the balance, the Midlothian club will, like several across the country, feel the pinch of an extended period without football.

Nevertheless, they have backed the decision to suspend football amid concerns for the health of players, supporters and club employees.

A club statement read: “The club fully endorse the statements made by the SFA/SPFL joint response group made on Friday and Monday in respect of suspension of all football activity at our level until they are in a position to give further clarity post a Uefa conference call happening today, 17 March.

“Our first priority is to ensure the health and safety of our players, management team, volunteers and supporters that attend our games and believe that the steps taken to date is an effective contribution to the wider efforts to control the impact of the virus.

“We also welcome the statement made by PFA Scotland in relation to playing games behind closed doors. The players and management team at our club and at the majority of clubs across Scotland are part-time and have day jobs as well as football. A number of our players are self-employed and others at present cannot go to their place of work at the moment as buildings are on lockdown. These are unprecedented times.”

The statement continued: “It goes without saying that the indefinite suspension of the season is having a financial impact on the club.

“We have a minimum of six home games yet to complete and were expecting big attendances at our home games vs Berwick Rangers on the 21st (which was part of the groundhop weekend and [BBC Scotland’s] A View from the Terrace was due along also) and our top-of-the-table clash vs Kelty Hearts on the 28th.

“If we were still in with a chance of winning the league at that stage we would have expected larger attendances than normal for our remaining league games also, bearing in mind that at the time of the suspension we were six points behind Kelty Hearts with a game in hand with six games to play.

“We will continue to investigate what support is available for a club such as ours but you can help to support us if you are in a position to do so via our weekly Roses lottery which at present is still going ahead this Sunday.

“We will continue to monitor the situation with respect to our lottery (i.e. if it is still safe for our sellers to sell tickets in the current environment) and will provide any updates as appropriate.”

The New Dundas Park club also called on their supporters to take care of each other and offered links to websites and phone numbers in the statement in order to try to help them through these 
worrying times.