1000 Fans at First Live UK Sport Event
For the first time since March fans attend a UK sporting event as 1,000 people attended the Kia Oval to watch the friendly cricket match between Surrey and Middlesex, on Sunday the 26th July.
The pilot events are planned to build up to the full, though socially distanced, return of sporting events from the 1st of October, giving all involved plenty of time to see how people react to the new measures.
Richard Gould, Surrey chief executive, described England's first live spectator sport event as "a definite success".
Fans were distanced from each other by alternate rows and two-seat gaps per group in two stands, and were encouraged to use the hand sanitiser that was placed around the ground to reduce infection risks.
Gould confirming 10,000 calls were made to snap up the 1,000 places available within only an hour of them going on sale, showing just how keen fans are to get return to the joy of watching live events.
And while it was wonderful to see crowds return on this smaller scale, Gould gave a sobering warning about the future.
"To get 1,000 people desperate to come, and more, is great," Gould said. "The sun is shining, cricket is taking place and people look happy.
"We've got about 100 staff in, so it's like a 10 to one ratio. This one is not viable in truth but we hope that if trials could get extended, we can then move to a more viable way.
"People are being really sensible, so if people are being really sensible you can adjust the numbers, so 30% [capacity] is not viable in the long term but it's a start.
"You'd need to be getting north of 60% or 70% for commercial viability. That's not going to happen with cricket this summer, but that would be the number that other sports will be wanting to try and get to."
"It was brilliant to see the crowd in - everyone's been starved of cricket this summer [and] it doesn't feel like a summer without it," Surrey head coach Vikram Solanki told BBC Radio London.
"The fact we were able to get out there today in reasonable weather, the cloud threatened for a while, but it was great and it served its purpose."
James Calder, the chair of the British government committee on the return of elite sports, said in an interview with the Associated Press that the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine will be a crucial factor in allowing stadiums to be full again.
“Whilst we’ve got a virus around without a vaccine, I think it’s going to be very, very difficult to do,” Calder said. “I really can’t see that happening in the next year. If there’s a vaccine that comes out, that’s been proven to be effective or… if the virus mutates and that isn’t as dangerous, then it may open [stadiums fully] but I can’t see it happening really until next year at the earliest.
“We’re probably looking at a maximum 25 per cent full capacity… perhaps in some stadiums, it may be down to 17 per cent and there’s a financial viability there as to whether it’s viable to open up the stadium.”
