"AT THE end of the day, without being dismissive, it's football, it's not life or death."

So said Tadcaster Albion manager Paul Quinn following the news that all football leagues below the seventh tier have come to an end, with the 2019/20 season being expunged.

At the point in which the FA suspended the current campaign due to the outbreak of the coronavirus, Tadcaster sat eighth in the BetVictor Northern Premier League north/west division.

The Brewers were on 40 points, 11 points adrift of the play-offs places, with 11 league matches still to be played.

And while rising into the top five and potentially securing promotion to the NPL premier division was still attainable for Tadcaster, Quinn had few qualms about the decision.

"I was probably a little bit surprised at the timing of it," he said, "I wasn't expecting it to be that quick.

"I think that whatever the decision that was made, some people would have agreed with it and some people would have disagreed with it.

"Without being dismissive, I think it's one of those things where they've made a decision and we've just got to get on with it.

"I do feel sorry for the teams that are pushing and that are, like ourselves, pushing to try and get into the play-offs as well as the teams that are even further ahead of ourselves in terms of their promotion schedules.

"Obviously, it's very disappointing for those teams.

"But, in the grand scheme of things, it's secondary to what else is going on.

"Personally, I think that it would have been very, very difficult for us to continue the season or settle upon any other way of deciding the season that would have been fairer."

A points-per-game calculation had been suggested by some as the best way to settle the season and thus who would be promoted and relegation.

"I think that there are pros and cons to every decision," added Quinn.

"Some people did suggest a points per game. They were saying that you could take the table from the halfway point and look at the teams that you've only played once.

"But you did go down that points per game route, then some people may have had better run-ins than others - is that fair?

"Some teams would feel like they may have got more points than others in the last few games.

"Especially if you've got 10, 11 or 12 games left like most clubs in our league did.

"If we had have continued and we'd tried to play games in the summer, that would have presented a lot of challenges to the Non-League game.

"Rightly or wrongly, this is the decision that has been reached and we've just got to try and get on with it now.

"At the end of the day, without being dismissive, it's football, it's not life or death.

"It's important to everybody, we know that, it's the national game and everybody is passionate about it and we all want to get back to the game as quickly as we possibly can.

"But, the priority is getting the nation back on its feet first and then we'll take things from there."

"From my perspective, it is what it is.

"These are absolutely unprecedented times.

"I feel for the people in those positions where they felt that they were on the verge of achieving something."