For once, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the football authorities have shown some sense and taken the correct decision to postpone all Premier and EFL matches for the best part of a month, writes Peter Mitchell.

A far better approach than playing scores of games in empty stadia with zero income generated for the clubs. Even so the clubs at the lower levels are going to struggle with paying employee wages while no one comes through their gates. No harder of course for them than, potentially, for thousands of small businesses not related to sport.

For Swindon Town this means a higher number of postponed games than for most. They had crammed in no less than six more games in March - four of which were away. Even if the crisis eases in the six weeks, I can't see anyway that the season can be completed before mid-June - and that must be very optimistic considering the growing seriousness of the situation and a likely escalation of curtailments etc.

No one would wish any of this to have happened but, given that it has, then from a football point of view it has thrown up an interesting and unprecedented set of circumstances. When teams finally take the field again, whether it be in 4 weeks time or 8 weeks, it will be like starting a new season. Players who gave been injured for a while should be fit again and others will have suffered mishaps in training or playing in friendlies. For Swindon it would be hoped that Mathieu Bawdry is fit again and, if the delay went on long enough, we might even see Dion Conroy back!

After the last week of fixtures, the top of League 2 had become very tight indeed, with only 5 points separating the leading five teams. Swindon and Cheltenham have a game in hand, and there is only a 3 goal difference between four of the five. Who will benefit most from a lengthy lay off ? Impossible to say, but Plymouth and Crewe, being the teams with probably the most recent momentum, would surely have preferred to keep things going. If games restart in a month then the Town have an intriguing and important "first" game against Cheltenham on Good Friday.

It's certainly going to be a long 3 or 4 weeks with nothing to watch either live or on the box, and with lots of thumb twiddling likely on Saturday afternoons. Dodging the decorating will probably be the most difficult task of all! For my part I will need to have a kindly word or two with my golf clubs, and try to coax them out of hibernation in the garage - I hope they will agree to "play ball".

Apparently the EFL is meeting on Wednesday, so perhaps a lot of the speculation currently going on will then be removed and some clarity provided.