Barrow AFC head of community Craig Rutherford plans to stream live football skills sessions to help children stay active once schools are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is part of the Community Trust’s efforts to continue to help people in the town at a time when they’ve had to shut down their programmes while the government recommends against mass social gatherings.

That included the futsal, Mini Bluebirds and Junior Bluebirds sessions that they run, while the Easter Holiday programme will no longer be running next month.

Rutherford, who is gauging support on social media for his idea, said: “I’m still going to personally do things just to help people out.

“I’m going to run some kind of live football activity sessions from my house once the schools have closed to try and keep the young children active and I’m more than happy to, if the government allow it, to deliver some childcare for frontline staff in the NHS.

“We just don’t know how all of this is going to work at the moment.”

The Community Trust is hoping the worst of the crisis will have passed by the time of their planned 24-hour football match that aims to raise funds for grassroots football and the Bluebirds Study Centre, which is currently set for June 27-28 at Pulse Soccer in Barrow.

Nonetheless, these are uncertain times, with Rutherford saying: “I don’t like talking about money because that’s not why we do it; we genuinely do it to make a difference in the local community.

“But, obviously, the income pays for the coaches and it pays for other members of staff. Like any other small business now, we’ll be working hard to keep afloat because our other income sources have now stopped.”