One thing possibly enjoying the break from action is the Ewood Park pitch.

With the Under-18s enjoying a run to the last four of the FA Youth Cup, following four successive home victories, the number of matches played on the Ewood pitch this season has reached 30.

Because of that, with Under-23s fixtures having also been staged on the first-team pitch, it has started to show signs of wear.

Four more home games remain for Rovers when the season resumes from its current coronavirus shutdown, with the break work allowing extra preparation work to take place.

Long-serving groundsman Trevor Wilkin is among those whose work continues, despite the doors being shut to Ewood and staff told to work from home where possible.

While all three of the club’s sites, including the senior training centre and Academy base at Brockhall, all currently closed because of the ongoing threat of the virus, that doesn’t mean that ground maintenance work can stop.

Wilkin hopes the pitch will be in pristine condition for when the games can resume, with Leeds United, West Brom, Bristol City and Reading all still to visit Ewood, but not before April 30, the current resumption date provided by the EFL.

While the number of games played has had an effect so has the extremely wet weather experienced over recent months.

“We’d just come out of a bad winter, a wet winter, playing a lot of games in the wrong conditions, but I know that’s the name of the game,” said the club’s head groundsman.

“We’d done really well in the FA Youth Cup, which was great for the club, but it was horrendous for me.

“Every time we seem to play a Youth Cup game and a first team game at home, it seems that it always rains. I’ve been here for 40 years now, and you’re normally preparing for frost, but it’s been raining for weeks and weeks now.

“I think we’ve hit 30 home games this season already before the postponements.

“We’re hopeful the pitch can be dried out and pristine by the time the next home game comes around.

“It was good on a personal level, but I’d have obviously preferred to have continued to play football, especially because this time of year does make the pitch better.”

The club spent over half a million pound on pitches in the summer, investment sanctioned by owners Venky’s, with work completed on 11 pitches across the club’s three sites, including Ewood Park.

Wilkin is in to his 38th year of tending to the Ewood pitch and admits: “Grass doesn’t stop growing because of the coronavirus.”

The EFL ban on matches was brought in just 24 hours before Rovers were due to host Bristol City.

The players were training as normal for that game, prior to the announcement being made, and so too were the ground staff for what would have been home game number 20 for the senior side.

The first possible date for football returning was April 3, with Rovers then due to host Leeds United under the Ewood lights, live on Sky Sports, but that has now been pushed back to April 30.

The changes to the schedule are all things that Wilkin and his team have had to contend with as work to the pitch continues in the meantime.

But Wilkin believes the break may well have come at a good time for the pitch to enjoy some recovery time.

“It was quite bizarre, because the Friday before the Bristol City game we were setting up as normal, and then we got the phone call to say that the game was off,” he told the club website.

“We’d taken all the lighting off, so they had to be dragged back on the pitch and then initially we were all set to get everything ready for the Leeds game.

“That’s now been put back, so it’s crazy times right now, but the break came at a good time for us at Ewood to be honest.”