Northampton Town have confirmed that the club had applied for their game against Hull City to be a trial for returning fans before plans were paused.

The news comes after the government announced intended plans for fans to return to sporting events in England on October 1st were put on hold as part of greater measures to control coronavirus, after a recent spike in cases.

Select games in the EFL had been played in front of 1,000 fans last weekend, including the Cobblers’ trip to Shrewsbury Town.

The Northampton chairman Kelvin Thomas told the club’s official site of his disappointment, but understood that it would look unusual to allow fans to return at a time restrictions were appearing in general.

He said, “Overall football as whole is disappointed that the return of supporters programme has been paused and it is tough to understand but we accept we don’t have the full scientific data that the Government has. 

“The pilot games went well but we also understand it doesn’t look right to allow football in to stadiums while extra restrictions are being implemented on the wider public. 

“As a club, we did a lot of work to get ready for this weekend with our local Safety Advisory Group. We had applied to be a trial game against Hull City on Saturday and we were ready to go. That isn’t happening now because of the Government announcement but of course we want to get fans back as soon as possible. 

“The word is that this is only a pause at the moment and we want that review to be ongoing. While the pause will have a short term impact, some of the conversations around it might actually have a long term benefit. If the COVID numbers come under control, we might be able to get to bigger numbers of supporters in stadiums quicker than through the trial process we were going through.”