Carrow Road stewards called in to help school Covid testing

Stewards used to policing fans at Carrow Road have been called in to help a Norwich school’s Covid testing.

The security staff have been helping oversee testing of thousands of pupils to allow their return to City of Norwich School.

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Assistant head Andrew Innes, who is also an ambulance service responder and helps with matchday first aid cover at Carrow Road, said the school had needed to ramp up testing from 100 a week to 5,000 in eight days.

“We have been using our own staff who have been working brilliantly and volunteering but even with them we didn’t have enough staff to cover it,” he told Radio Norfolk. “So we put out a plea for help to Norwich and they came straight back and said ‘tell us what you want’.

Norwich City football stewards have been helping staff with the pupil coronavirus testing programme at City of Norwich School. (Image: Ormiston Academies Trust)

“We have stewards marshalling, helping students with their tests and processing the tests and it has been a big help to us.”

The effort has seen all students complete their first test and return to school, with no positive results.

Andy Batley, Norwich City stadium operations manager, said: “This is very different for us but when Andrew asked we jumped at the chance.”