Strathspey Thistle manager Gordon Nicolson reckons work commitments could be a big obstacle to getting the Highland League restarted.
There has been no movement on whether the league season can or will resume, with lockdown restrictions across Scotland extended this week.
League secretary Rod Houston has been consistent in his hope the season can be played to a finish, despite teams only playing a handful of games.
However, a backlog of games would result in teams playing midweeks for the remainder of the season, while the finish date would also likely have to be extended.
Frequent midweek games would then bring an added headache for managers of part-time players, who all have their own varying work circumstances to consider.
Nicolson said: “I think I’ve got a really good squad with a lot of talented players. From a physical point of view, playing twice a week is not going to impact them hugely. The bulk of our squad is under 23, so their enthusiasm will get them through a lot of games.
“The other more practical issue is if we’re playing Saturday-Wednesday, we need to get boys off their work. That will be more of a challenge than the physical part of it.
“In purely football terms, my players are absolutely champing at the bit to get back playing. If we do get back, then it’ll be a relief for us all to get back to doing what we love.”
Strathspey have yet to kick a ball in the league, with four games postponed due to the weather and another due to Turriff United’s participation in the Scottish Cup.
The Jags played their only game in Scotland’s national cup competition, in the 4-0 defeat to Buckie Thistle in December.
Nicolson added: “It’s difficult to assess anything as we’ve only played the one game. The fact we’ve not played a single league game – we’ve been back since September 1 but it feels like we’ve had it in waves.
“We were ready for a mid-October start but that was pushed back to the end of November, so we had a break for a couple of weeks. It’s been so stuttery – the games we’ve missed haven’t really been related to Covid. It’s all been weather-related.
“We’ve still had snow in Grantown so had we been able to play football, I don’t think we’d have got a game in the last six weeks.
“From a personal point of view, I’m finding it more difficult just to keep positive and motivated about it all. It’s been such a slog, trying to prepare and plan and your plans are constantly getting pulled away from you.”
