John Pemberton blasts National League's "crazy" and "stupid" decision to allow Chesterfield's game at Dover go ahead despite coronavirus outbreak

John Pemberton blasted the National League’s decision to allow Chesterfield’s game at Dover Athletic to go ahead on Saturday amid the coronavirus outbreak.
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The Spireites sought advice from the National League on Friday because defender Haydn Hollis has been ill but Pemberton said they never heard anything back.

The squad delayed travelling to Dover on Friday afternoon while the National League held a meeting to discuss whether the weekend’s games should go ahead but because they took hours to make a decision the Blues had no choice but to set off.

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Pemberton revealed they only found out at 10.30am on the day of the game, which ended 1-1, that it was definitely on.

“There is no common sense in playing this game today,” Pemberton said.

“We rang the National League for advice because Haydn Hollis has not been well and a few of the players have not been feeling great and they did not give us any. They did not come back to us.

“We were hanging on and on and we just had to make a decision to go (to Dover). What I did not want to do was put it on myself to cancel the game and not travel down and the club end up with a fine. I did not know where we stood on it.”

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All Premier League and EFL games have been postponed until at least April 3 but the National League decided to proceed with the weekend’s matches - but only five went ahead in the end because of coronavirus-related problems.

Chesterfield caretaker manager John Pemberton was furious with the National League for allowing games to go ahead this weekend amid the coronavirus outbreak.Chesterfield caretaker manager John Pemberton was furious with the National League for allowing games to go ahead this weekend amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Chesterfield caretaker manager John Pemberton was furious with the National League for allowing games to go ahead this weekend amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Pemberton said: “The meeting took four or five hours to go against the decision by every league in Europe. For some reason we played our game which is crazy.

“It is the knock-on effect of people it has on day-to-day life. We have players who have got young families, young children. It is stupid.”

Pemberton added that Hollis has respiratory problems but they do not know if it is coronavirus yet.

“We are hoping he hasn’t but we would be naive to think that we have got a group of players that no one has got it,” he said.