IT was Stupor Sunday in the Premier League and all was quiet.
At West Ham, where David Moyes’ relegation-threatened team were due to take on Wolves, the tumbleweed blew as the 2pm kick-off time approached.
And at Tottenham, where Jose Mourinho was supposed to be locking horns with his former club Manchester United in a Champions League six-pointer at 4.30pm, the atmosphere was eerie.
A total of 120,000 fans would have been at these two London stadiums yesterday but, as the coronavirus took hold, the scene was desolate.
It was the weekend when new normality hit home. The weekend our pleasure palaces fell silent, due to an unprecedented global health crisis.
A re-run of Mrs Brown’s Boys instead of Match of the Day. TalkSPORT playing Stuart Pearce’s favourite punk songs in the absence of any actual sport to talk about. A void in every supporter’s life.
English professional football has been suspended until April 4, but even supreme optimists do not expect the situation to have improved until months later — with September the best bet for a resumption.
If you thought international breaks were bad enough, this is already feeling like an indefinite international break. Without the internationals.
Sport is that most important of unimportant things. It means nothing — as we all realise when reality crashes in — and yet so often it seems to mean everything.
And football, in particular, has been a weekend release and a focal point for millions of us for well over a century.
So what are we going to do with ourselves on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon now?
What will blokes talk to their fathers and sons about?
What will we debate if the pubs are still open? Or, more realistically, what will we get angry about online?
At West Ham and Spurs, the local boozers were quiet.
Fans of these clubs tend to flood in from the suburbs and shires to watch their teams.
Without football for six months, these small businesses will struggle to survive. The Carpenters Arms, the most local pub to West Ham’s London Stadium, would normally rake in at least £10,000 on a matchday, but would struggle to take a grand on any other day.
Yesterday, there were seven punters inside — including West Ham fans Paul Brecht and Kevin Leach sitting and having the quietest of pints in front of a photo of Bobby Moore swapping shirts with Pele at the 1970 World Cup.
Both fans are sceptical about the opinion of Hammers vice-chairman Karren Brady that the league campaign should be declared null and void.
“She would say that, wouldn’t she?” says Brecht, a former Upton Park season ticket-holder who is still a regular match-goer.
“The only thing that’s clear is that nobody has got a clue what is going to happen and that you can’t plan for anything when you don’t know the severity of what you’re facing.”
A few miles around the North Circular, at Daniel Levy’s opulent new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, they are advertising summer appearances from Guns N Roses and Anthony Joshua — more events which are likely to bite the dust.
Spurs might have benefitted from a short break in the season, due to the injury problems Mourinho might have mentioned once or twice.
For a buoyant United, unbeaten in 11 games, the only upside is the possibility of Liverpool missing out on the Premier League title.
Half a dozen United fans had made the trip down to London anyway, having a look around outside Spurs’ new home — where United have never yet played.
But approaching the scheduled kick-off time, there are literally no drinkers in the neighbouring Number Eight bar — formerly the Bell & Hare pub, where Jimmy Greaves and Co did their post-match drinking with supporters in the 1960s.
At the Bricklayers Arms, across the Tottenham High Road, there are five drinkers — none Spurs fans — where barman PJ Duffy says there would have been 500 had the match been on.
Bar takings reduced from £20,000 to a trickle. Duffy ought to have been hearing the singing and roaring from across the road, watching the live action on his big screen.
Instead, two men played pool and two more watched the racing from Carlisle as Morrissey played on the jukebox.
“Every day is like Sunday,” sang the old misery-guts, “every day is silent and grey.”
