Outside sport – football 

by Max

Although most sports stopped and have only just started up not long-ago, outdoor football has been going since the Christmas holidays ended. Although some clubs have yet to start, some haven’t stopped apart from during the normal holidays and the time that it wasn’t possible to play due to COVID-19 restrictions.

There are also some clubs that have only started in the last week or two, and others are sure to be inviting players back soon as well.

The Orkney football programme of players going to trials to try and make it into the Orkney squad for their age group to compete against other teams from down-south such as Caithness and Ross County, and also play against rivals Shetland, will be going ahead.

The reason that this season of Orkney football has not started yet is because of the fact that some clubs have decide not to because there would be mixing between the players, although to rival this fact many of the players will be mixing anyway and things such as other sports, school and meeting up in free time.  

For some of the players this will be devastating as this will mean missing out on trips away and other opportunities, such as even just playing more football or meeting with other friends that they might not otherwise see.  

There have been some games between clubs in the secondary age group and there are set to be more occurring in the near future.  

Some people may think that this going ahead in the current state of the virus may be bad as social distancing is very hard to maintain during the playing of a contact sport but others would contradict this with the fact that the football is all being held outdoors in the secondary age group and also that all 34+ year olds and also the vulnerable people in Orkney have at least been offered the vaccine for COVID if not had it.  

Being back outside with friends and other peers can create a better state of mental health than that of sitting inside and talking to them on a voice call, and playing sports and running around is good for their physical health on top of that.  

The lockdown has been a tough time for everyone and it is good to see that at least some of the younger population are getting back to their sports like football.