Ward’s Words

Watford captain and Wales record goalscorer Helen Ward’s View From The Field column, opening on the observation that two months is normally a long time in football, unless a global pandemic has left everything exactly as it was. She has not seen her Watford teammates since a friendly on Sunday 1 March, before leaving for Wales’ fixture against Estonia in North Wales, and is no closer to knowing when she will. Zoom meetings, quiz nights and race nights have been fun but replace nothing. Ward stresses that any return must be safe, while arguing that some plan or even a rough sense of when would help players and clubs prepare for 2020-21. A silver lining has been ten weeks working on mobility, stretching and core work she had neglected, and exercising in front of her children. She closes hoping the game survives its toughest test since the 1920s ban.