How the shutting down of competitive football played out at Doncaster Rovers

The club was fully prepared for last weekend’s scheduled game against AFC Wimbledon to go ahead, and had implemented a number of special measures to help combat the spread of Covid-19.

But within a matter of hours the situation changed, with the EFL suspending their competitions until the weekend of April 4 at the earliest.

Rovers had prepared for such a quick change in circumstances, according to chief executive Gavin Baldwin.“Obviously we’ve been aware of the coronavirus for some time now,” he said.

“We set up a working group across all staff, whether it be at the training ground, the manager, the Foundation, Dons, Belles etc so we could start understanding very early to protect staff, fans and partners of the club.

“Last week we were aware the government was moving from the containment to the delay phase and that the delay phase may possibly including cancelling sporting fixtures and mass gatherings.

“Until Thursday night we were working under the assumption that the game was going ahead against Wimbledon and we wanted to provide the best event we could in the safest environment.

“We had extra posters up, extra disinfectant, hand sanitisers, all the areas had been deep cleaned such as turnstyles and reception areas. We were going to do a massive awareness exercise on the Friday to say what we’d done.

“We had advice on Thursday to say the game would be going ahead but it changed overnight with the announcement that Mikel Arteta the Arsenal manager had tested positive. On the Friday morning we were told the game wouldn’t be going ahead.

“Fortunately, we’d already met twice on Thursday as a group just to understand that it was a moving feast, moving very quickly so we could be nimble.

“On Friday we were told the game wouldn’t be going ahead so we went into an awareness exercise.”