TADCASTER Albion manager Paul Quinn admitted that it is a “worrying time” at the club, but stressed that football is a secondary concern amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The spread of the coronavirus has seen almost all live sport throughout the country suspended, with clubs, organisations and players set to suffer financially as a result.

Tadcaster’s season in the BetVictor Northern Premier League north/west division has been delayed “until further notice”, the league’s administrators confirmed last week.

Albion are currently eighth in the table, 11 points adrift of the play-off places with 11 games still to play, though no decision has yet been made on when or whether the league campaign will resume.

Quinn though was keen to insist that while football clubs such as Tadcaster may feel the effects of coronavirus, the issue was one that transcended sport.

“It’s obviously a very difficult time for everybody,” he said.

“I think that football does come secondary to everything that is going on at the moment in terms of people’s health and safety.

“There’s no doubt that this is going to have a big impact on clubs, their finances and the players’ finances as well. It is a worrying time.

“Considering everything that the club has been through for the past few weeks, with the floods, it has kind of compounded on top of each other.

“I’ve had a meeting with the club and the plans and things in place for next season are really positive.

“I think that it’s a case of weathering this storm and, when we do come through the other end of it, we’re then bigger, stronger and ready to go again whenever that is.”

Tadcaster returned to Ings Lane for the first time since the flood troubles which threatened the club’s existence on March 14, losing 4-2 to division leaders Workington.

The boosted crowd benefitted the club’s finances for the short term.

“The primary focus at the moment is securing the club’s financial future,” added Quinn.

“Certainly our last game at home will have helped us. We had a better crowd than what we would usually have due to all of the games being off.

“But there is only so much money left in the club’s reserves and obviously (we’re) dealing with the refurbishments and repairs and everything around the ground as well.

“The club are looking into what they can do, in terms of liaising with the league and the FA.

“We’re also a business as well, so we’re also looking into things that the government are proposing in terms of helping businesses out in the short-term.

“It sounds like there is plenty of support out there, it’s just about making sure that we’ve got the right support in place to weather these next few weeks or months, however long that may be.”

Quinn is hopeful that clubs from across the Non-League pyramid can use the period of time out of action to "reframe" their thinking about how football is currently run.

He said: “One of the things that I said to one of our directors was that ‘One positive from this period of time is that it does give us that buffer that we weren’t really expecting to be able to look at things and how we go about them.

“From my perspective, that’s not just about Tadcaster, it’s about the entire Non-League game, which has pretty much gone about it’s business for the same way for a very long time.

“There is an opportunity now to reframe our thinking around football and how it is run.

"Particularly that’s about the Non-League game and how we can make it sustainable for more clubs.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for clubs to now step back and think about how they run their business and how they can do things differently."