Coronavirus and Leeds United - keeping the beautiful game alive

Games, from the Premier League right down to grassroots, might not be taking place right now but football is a community, not just a sport.

Football still exists, on games consoles, on social media, on DVDs and hard drives and in the minds and conversations of fanatics.

Want proof? Leeds United streamed a game of FIFA on Sunday, against a virtual Cardiff City side, when they should have been in Wales playing in the first of their matches to fall victim to the coronavirus suspension.

For a short time, the game captured the attention and imagination of Whites. Desperate times, it could be said. But it was fun. It was a distraction from the strange, troubling times in which we find ourselves.

Goals were celebrated, mock analysis delivered. Where is Big Kev? Why isn’t Kalvin playing? Bamford on a hat-trick, back in goalscoring form with a bang.

It was matchday, or the best we could possibly hope for, for a precious few moments.

We’re going to need a lot more of that kind of tongue-in-cheek making-the-best-of-it attitude before the real stuff is happening at Elland Road again.

We’re going to need videos of Gjanni Alioksi kicking a toilet roll about his home, although it may soon be a crime to treat the most valuable of commodities with such disdain. Twitter can be a nightmarish place to be but, by exercising the control we have over who we choose to follow and let input into our lives via our screens, we can make it a fairly pleasant source of humour and camaraderie.

But, as lovely as it is to see Leeds fans keeping the conversation alive, banding together as an online community, those little moments of togetherness are passing many Whites by.

Not everyone is on social media and they’re probably better off than the rest of us in many ways.

Yet when it comes to football, their absence from the world of digital communication could see them slip through the cracks and become isolated, particularly now that the government advice is to avoid pubs and clubs.

This pandemic is going to take lives and it’s tragic that a number of those who file religiously through the turnstiles into the church of Revie, Bremner and Bielsa may never do so again.

But it will also take away human contact, it will rob many of conversation and the feeling that they’re not alone.

It will, if we let it, steal that feeling from some Leeds United fans that they are part of something much bigger than themselves, it will excommunicate them from the Elland Road family for what could be months. It will be a long time to go without football but an eternity without the company of the friends you meet at the pub before the game, or catch the bus to Elland Road with, or the season ticket holder who sits next to you and enjoys a natter in the moments before Liam Cooper leads the team out and everyone rises to sing Marching on Together.

Football brings people together and it’s imperative then we stay together, even through periods of self-isolation, working from home and avoiding all non-essential contact with others.

I think, mainly, of Whites in the 70 and over bracket, who could be cooped up for months – at risk, depending on their family status, of feeling forgotten.

It’s imperative, therefore, that Leeds United fans do what the song says and March on Together.

Pick up the phone, call your match-going pals and tell them the North Macedonian master of mischief managed to get hold of some toilet roll and he’s playing keepy uppy, drop a note through doors, text everyone in your minibus group.

Be family.

And, if you’ve no one else to talk football to, talk to the Yorkshire Evening Post – write to us, email us.

We’ll bring you whatever news there is to bring, introduce you to fellow Leeds fans, tell you their stories and delve into the archives and lives of players past and present.

Let’s keep the conversation alive, at least until the world stops going round.