FARMINGTON, Arkansas — Football Friday Nights start back Friday (Aug. 28) but it won’t be the exact experience football fans are used to because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are so excited to see our kids play again,” Farmington Athletic Director Beau Thompson said.
Farmington High School will be playing Rogers Heritage High School for their first game of the season. Thompson says they will be complying with all of the Arkansas Department of Health and AAA guidelines and they are going to keep their stadium capacity at 50%.
“We do know that is an inconvenience to our fans and people coming to watch the game but right now we are just excited to watch our kids play and we’ll do anything we need to do in our power to let them continue to do that,” he said.
Thompson says season ticket holders are guaranteed entry into the game. Fans can expect social distance markers around the stadium and every other row of bleachers will be taped off. They will only allow family members to sit in groups.
“We are actually going to have a student section," Thompson said. "We won’t have as many students in it, they’ll all have to be six feet apart with a bleacher between them, front to back. We are trying to get our kids as close to a normal Friday night as we can in these difficult times."
Shiloh Christian School will be taking on Pea Ridge but if you weren’t able to get a ticket then you can watch the game in the parking lot on an 18.5 foot LED screen just outside the stadium. Anyone can bring their lawns chairs and watch the game with their family.
Shiloh Christian Director of Communications Brian Dunaway says those fans who will be inside the stadium will also see social distancing stickers and every other row of bleachers will also be blocked off.
“We’re allowing parents of band and cheer and players to come in but that takes up a whole lot of the stadium, so after you get all of that taken up you don’t have a whole lot of room left but we still want everybody who wants to enjoy Shiloh football to be able to come do it,” he said.
You can watch the Farmington vs. Rogers Heritage game here and the Shiloh Christian vs. Pea Ridge game here.
The scores for all high school football games can be found here.