Sport in the time of The Virus. Quite rightly, there isn’t any.

Sport in the time of The Virus. Quite rightly, there isn’t any. Amid all the troubling, terrifying and often baffling coronavirus coverage, it has become truly tedious to hear that some governing body or other of some sport or other is meeting to decide whether or not to cancel some tournament or other.

“Of course you’ve got to cancel it!” we shout at the radio. “Just get on with it.” Eventually the right decision is made, and that fills another few minutes or column inches of media. And then begins the speculation as to when the event in question will eventually take place. “Nobody cares!” I yell. “There are more important things to worry about.”

But this is always true of sport. It doesn’t amount to a string of beans, yet it really does to so many people. I was on air when it was announced there would be no football for the next three weeks. Even as the announcement was made, everybody, including the dogs on the street, knew we would be football-less for a lot longer than that. It felt like the authorities couldn’t bring themselves to announce that, lest our whole diseased, football-shaped world would disintegrate in sheer dismay.

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