AT the end of the storm, there’s a golden sky.

I may have lost several readers by using lyrics from Liverpool FC’s famous anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone straight away but hear me out.

The sentiment attached to those words is what we all hope will ring true as we welcome 2021 with open arms.

In the context of the devastation Covid-19 has brought to the world this year, the impact on sport is pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Some have lost livelihoods. Others have lost loved ones.

You will not find many people locally, nationally or globally that has not had their lives altered in some way by a disease none of us knew existed this time 12 months ago.

However, sport means so much to so many. It helps bind communities together and Warrington is no different.

For many, things like standing shoulder-to-shoulder with friends at The Halliwell Jones Stadium, travelling to all parts of the country to watch our teams play and even taking to the field themselves means the world.

All of that has been taken away from them this year and the impact cannot be underestimated.

And to think, 2020 had the potential to be a super sporting year for our little corner of the world.

Would Warrington Rylands make it back-to-back promotions? Could Warrington Town get the job done and reach the National League North?

And of course, the big one – would it finally be Warrington Wolves’ year?

Little did we know that we would be reflecting upon things such as The Wire playing home games in St Helens in front of no fans – how inconceivable was that at the start of 2020?

The survival of clubs and sports as a whole, particularly in the case of rugby league, was brought under question. Everything was laid bare.

The sporting community has been knocked down and just as it was battling its way back, the invisible enemy that is coronavirus is closing in again.

It is naïve to think everything will be fine again once calendars turn to January. If anything, we will have to take another heap of foul-tasting medicine before things get better.

On a local scale in particular, the situation looks precarious.

For both Town and Rylands, the prospect of a second consecutive null-and-void season gets more likely with each week of inactivity.

For Blues in particular, who seemed set for promotion before things ground to a halt in March before an unbeaten start to this season coupled with their longest ever FA Vase run, it would be a bitter pill to swallow.

The first couple of months will be tough, but that golden sky is coming further into our vision.

With talk of vaccination programmes being dramatically scaled up in the new year, the hope is that when winter turns to spring, we will have much of our lives back again.

This has been a year the vast majority of us would rather forget, but let us hope 2021 is unforgettable for the right reasons.

We dream of cheering on The Wire from the terraces again, meeting in pubs to watch England in the European Championships, watching nations of the world collide on our doorstep in the Rugby League World Cup and many other things besides.

We have been through the mill but soon – very soon – we will have our sporting lives back.