Guest column: How Doncaster Athletic Club have safeguarded their future and are pulling together during the pandemic

A record 647 members were signed up, a full programme prepared for the track and field season and road race bookings were again proving popular.

Many local and regional schools were booked in for sports days and we had been looking forward to our Easter Open Meeting.

There was also cause for celebration after winning a National England Athletics Award last year.

All this was not to be, however, as the lockdown came in the middle of March and meant instant closure for our site.

No one could have predicted that even into June there is little prospect of our site re-opening fully until next year, with social distancing making athletic events impossible.

Fortunately our healthy cash reserves and a grant from Sport England has safeguarded our future into next year and plans are already in place to kick-start an exciting programme for 2021.

Recently clubs received guidance from England Athletics about considering initial steps to begin training.

Following this guidance club officials have completed a Covid-19 risk assessment enabling coaching for over 11s to begin on a one coach to two athletes basis by invitation only.

Sadly jump events are still not possible until deep cleaning recommendations have been finalised.

Our leasehold agreement has enabled the club to open in part on its own merits and to spread training across seven days thereby minimising risk.

One of the last acts of kindness was the donation of several hundred pounds worth of flowers from Hirst Lane Nurseries, ready for our Open Meeting in April.

Sadly the flowers were not able to be enjoyed by many but we have kept them going until a few days ago.

Our members have been extremely supportive of each other and to the club, ensuring no one is alone or struggling, taking time out to check the security of our site and water the plants, organising fitness activities and keeping our Facebook page alive with humour and many lockdown stories and features.

It may be many months yet before our Keepmoat site is open but the club and its members remain strong and we are all looking forward to returning to what we do best, serving our community as an all-inclusive family orientated athletic club.

Kev Lincoln is the chairman of Doncaster Athletic Club

As coaches we needed to support our members and running community.

If we couldn’t be together physically, we had to find other ways to come together.

Social media was the starting point, we were already connected. So Facebook and WhatsApp groups would become where our members would meet.

Over 30 of our members wrote about their running journey and about themselves with running photos to share with our members.

We also organised various virtual events including Parkrun every Saturday for fun, Parkrun GP for points every few weeks and a Covid-19 relay pitting Doncaster AC Odds and Evens against Danum Harriers Odds and Evens in a challenge that ran for several weeks.

We ran mile eliminator, 10 Mile and 6 Mile events for club championships and came up with a ‘Euro 2020-style’ championship for this month which involves 120 runners competing against each other in teams of five.

Members are delivering virtual exercise classes and as part of a 1000km challenge we are up to 15,190km so far as a group.

In events organised by other clubs we won a Yorkshire-wide Covid-19 relay and we completed a Yorkshire Mile Marathon Relay in around 2:40:00.

Non-running related activities have included book club, baking club, photo treasure hunts, weekly virtual quiz and Strava Art.

We’ve been helping each other out with shopping and baking, and coaches have engaged with athletes via online Zoom sessions which have allowed us to train together either in the back garden or front room.

Online webinars with parents and athletes have kpet them updated with what has been happening and our YouTube channels like ‘sportsfun’ showcased training sessions you could do at home and allowed athletes and parents to work together at their own pace.

Weekly challenges were set and completed by the athletes and they would send in videos of them completing the challenges and coaches and athletes would talk together.

Our coaches have also been joining other coaches across the world on webinars discussing training methods, nutrition, mental health and many more subjects.

As restrictions have begun to ease our members have been able to start seeing each other while adhering to the social distancing rules.

Our coaches have been able to begin coaching on a one-to-one or one-to-two ratio with athletes (with a parent viewing if the athlete is under 18).

Our track is now starting to slowly open, our Covid-19 risk assessments are in place and the safety of our members and community remain our top priority.

Like everyone we are taking small steps to get back to some form of normality. It will take time and each of our members will have their own worries and concerns but together we will flourish again.

Les Grant and Martin James are coaches at Doncaster Athletic Club

*If you would like your club to feature as guest columnists in the Free Press email [email protected].