Top advice for Yorkshire clubs on how to get through fixture congestion from former Rotherham United star

With the Premier League and Championship seasons squeezed at both ends by coronavirus, clubs are going to have to pack matches in during the hottest months of the year.

Sheffield United must squeeze at least 11 games, they hope 13, into 45 days starting on June 17. Championship clubs come back three days later with nine fixtures each to play. It does not look like Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Huddersfield, Middlesbrough, Hull City or Barnsley will have the extra workload of the play-offs, but the desire to complete them “on or around July 30” means their final matches will have to come much sooner.

For 21st Century elite footballers, it is asking a lot.

As manager of Worksop Town, though, a wet winter saw McIntosh have to push his part-time players through 21 Northern Premier League Premier Division matches in March and April 2011. While he believes the top divisions will be able to cope much better, he still worries about injuries, and thinks it will take time to get up to speed.

“I worry about how their muscles will be able to deal with the overload,” says McIntosh, now manager of Grantham Town. “There could be a lot of injuries. I think the five substitutes rule is quite sensible.

“It will take three or four matches before they really get up to speed.

“I think the pace of the game might slow down a bit too. Look at the weather at the moment – if it’s like it is now, it will be even more difficult. I can’t see how they’re going to be at 100 per cent.

“It’s not been an ordinary summer in that they’ve been working continually.

“In pre-season you’d organise friendlies but who are they going to play friendlies against? They’ll probably have their own in-house training games and not much else. It will be tough and interesting.”

Worksop’s record in March/April 2011 was won nine, lost nine, drew three.

“We were playing four games in seven days at times,” recalls McIntosh, who had a spell on Ronnie Moore’s coaching staff at Rotherham before going into non-league management. “It was just ridiculous really. Nobody’s body can recover in time to play a football match.

“You could only give them a lot of credit because we didn’t have a big squad either. You could see in the second half of games they were running on empty. Some of the players had jobs as well.

“It was a slog, there’s no doubt about it. It was bordering on ridiculous for the players. If things didn’t go your way you couldn’t criticise the players, but the quality goes down because the energy levels are just spent.”

McIntosh had to pull on the boots himself, rolling back the years with a couple of fine free-kick goals.

“I think I was about 41 at the time,” he recalls. “As a manager it’s really difficult to judge who needs a rest because until the actual match starts you don’t really realise.

“A lot of players play Saturday-Monday on a Bank Holiday but normally once you’ve done that you have a couple of days off. These boys are going to be going again. It was too many games back then and I don’t think it will ever get to that stage again.

“We were pushed into a corner to fulfil all those fixtures in that time and we missed out on the play-offs because of that. I had no doubt we would have got there otherwise.

“In the next year or two Fylde got the season extended by a week or 10 days. We would have loved that.”

McIntosh is full of admiration for the country’s top players, however, and is confident they will come through.

“They will just be desperate to get playing,” he argues. “It’s just good that they’re going to be back playing.

“Players are serious athletes now, getting better and better every year and very, very dedicated in the way they look after themselves. It’s something not everyone has experienced before but the clubs are very well organised with good fitness coaches.

“I think they will adapt. They’re fit enough to be able to deal with it and the quality will be good because at that standard there’s quality everywhere.

“All the squads will be utilised but they will not be able to train much between matches. It will mainly just be warm-down sessions and conserving energy and the fitness coaches will be looking after that. They’ve got great scientific people behind them and they’re very, very dedicated.

“What else can you do? They’re pushed into a corner because of the financial situation.”

He has most sympathy for his old club Rotherham.

While the top two divisions are pressing ahead for their mid-June resumption and League Two clubs have written off their campaign, League One are yet to make their minds up, meaning Rotherham’s players have to keep fit in case they are told on June 8 they are coming back. In all likelihood, the second-placed team have probably already won promotion.

“I’m hoping they get promoted,” says McIntosh. “They’re waiting around to see whether they might start back again or not.

“I think it’s very unfair on the club and the players that you’re not just given a decision.”

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