BADSHOT LEA are thanking their lucky stars they’re a well-run club as coronavirus brought the season to a shuddering halt.

Some clubs still have bills to pay while no football means no money coming in – but that’s not the case at the Combined Counties premier division side.

Co-manager Gavin Smith said: “We will lose some money as we’ve not had any home games.

“But although I don’t think we had any real income apart from the football, as the club has not been open there’s been no-one to pay, apart from the groundstaff.

“Some players get expenses so with no games now no-one is getting anything now. At our level, there are no players on contracts that need paying.

“Some clubs will have to pay rent and other bills, so we’re lucky.”

With Badshot Lea in mid-table when the season ended, they had little to play for. Smith said: “We had no chance of promotion, and were in no danger of relegation –unless we had suffered an horrendous run – as we were well clear of that.

“It was disappointing to finish, though, as we all want to keep playing football.

“We haven’t spoken to anyone yet about next season – until we know what is happening, there’s no point. We want everyone to stay – we don’t want anyone to leave.

“As we were relatively new as a group, we hope we could keep 90 per cent of them. Some might want to go off and see what they can achieve at a higher level – and we would encourage that, as we want them to play at the highest level they can.

“We lost the majority of our squad during the season – out of the 18 we started the season with, we have eight now. We are a new side, and we were really pleased with the attitude of the players’ we got in.

“Three or four weeks before Christmas was a nightmare as we wondered how we would get players in, but you get one player and someone else follows, and we got a good group together.

“We still need some consistency but overall we should have a young group, with a couple of old heads, for next season. It’s an exciting prospect – only when that will be, no-one knows.”