AFP, Shanghai :
The team are split in half, with some players in lockdown and others training, but a modest Chinese club from the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic is at last beginning to turn its attentions to football again.
Wuhan Three Towns FC, a team in China’s third division that draws crowds of between 2,000 and 4,000, were gearing up for a promising new season in League Two South when their world was turned upside down.
“We have been isolated at home for almost two months,” Yu Chen, an assistant coach, told AFP by telephone from Wuhan – the city of 11 million people where the outbreak emerged in December.
As virus deaths ticked up alarmingly, Chinese authorities placed Wuhan and the surrounding province of Hubei on a strict lockdown in January, with nobody allowed in or out of the area and an estimated 56 million people ordered to stay indoors.
The start of the Chinese football season was indefinitely postponed.
“Earlier, when the epidemic was serious, I was very panicky,” said the 32-year-old Yu.
“At that time, I felt that many people in Hubei were quite afraid, so were my friends. “We were worried about the health of our families and did not know if they were going to be infected and how.”
But as the coronavirus spreads in other parts of the world, notably in Europe, China is beginning to see some light at last.
