COLCHESTER United general manager Tim Waddington admits the impact Covid-19 has had on the club’s festive events at the stadium has been ‘soul destroying’.

December is traditionally a hugely significant month for the U’s at the JobServe Community Stadium, with bigger crowds for matches and a plethora of lucrative events taking place at the venue in the build-up to Christmas.

The U’s have always hosted a host of popular events at the stadium at this time of year, bringing in much-needed funds for the club.

However, all of those have had to be cancelled this year due to the Covid-19 restrictions and Waddington admits it is a testing time.

Waddington said: “Normally, December is the most incredible month and most pivotal income month for us as a club.

“Now we’re looking at a couple of thousand people for the matches we were allowed fans in for.

“It’s worlds apart, it really is and to lose all of that has been tough.

“It’s really been quite a challenge.

“It’s quite soul destroying when you look at how vibrant a stadium it was in December for the last decade or so and it being a lively, social place to the strange experience it is now with it being locked down with all the measures like face masks, sanitiser and signage in place – it’s poles apart.”

Colchester welcomed back fans for their home games against Morecambe and Grimsby Town, earlier this month.

It offered hope for the future and Waddington is determined to remain positive, in the hope of a more prosperous and profitable 2021.

“We’ve shown as a nation a bit of resilience and we’ve done the same in Colchester,” added Waddington.

“We’ve carried on going and we have to work out how to deal with it, going forward.

“But I don’t think many businesses will be the same going forward, after this.

“I hope we’ll be in a position where we’ll be able to rebuild and get ourselves into a position back to where we were before.

“We’ve shed an awful lot of staff, that’s the sad truth of it.

“We’ve lost 50 per cent of our workforce and they’re all excellent people.

“It’s whether or not we can build back that business, re-recruit and get ourselves back to where we were.

“We’re certainly not going to give in and roll over – we want to get back to doing what we do.

“A few games ago, I was conscious of the fact that at one point I was the only person clapping in the entire stadium after a goal and that’s horrible.

“It’s almost a bit embarrassing because you sit yourself down again and think ‘oops, that was a bit noisy’.

“At least whilst the fans were back in, there was a chance to share some of those moments.

“The players feed off the fans being back – you could see a few of them had a little extra lift from the fans being there and it was a really important to have them back in the ground.

“Clubs will lose a little bit of their soul without fans.”