No Olympics, no national league and no youth league as virus stops the sport

Newham Recorder: Beagles coach Tim MundleBeagles coach Tim Mundle (Image: Archant)

Like the rest of the sporting world, athletics has ground to a halt and for the Newham & Essex Beagles these are going to be difficult times.

The first two matches of the new National Men’s and Women’s League have been cancelled along with the Southern League and Youth Development League and now it looks like the Tokyo Olympics has gone the same way.

But for Beagles coach Tim Mundle the problems are more simple.

“All the training has had to be cancelled understandaby and we have no idea when we are going to be able to get back out there,” said the 72-year-old.

“Everything has to be done at home and trying to get the kids to train and exercise on their own indoors is always going to be difficult, there are so many other distractions there.”

Mundle himself is stuck at home, although he is keeping fit by working in the communal gardens where he lives, but clearly the whole club is going to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“When we do finally get back everyone is going to be out of condition and it will take weeks to get them back to normal,” said Tim.

“We had some high hopes of success this year with the likes of Aleeya Sibbons and Joel Pascal-Menzie, plus we had signed up a couple more youngsters who we were hoping would go to the European Juniors in the summer, it looks like that is not going to happen now.”

He continued: “We have to be sensible and do what the government are telling us and hopefully it will finally blow over and we can get back to it.

“It is not like the youngsters are able to play any other sport at the moment, we are all in the same boat, so hopefully having come along and worked with the Beagles before, we will see them all come back again.”

The big athletics event of the summer was supposed to be the OLympic Games and Tim believes it will happen, though not this summer.

“I think we will have the Olympics and it will be in Japan, but we will have to wait until everything is back to normal.

“We must be patient and hope it is over soon.”