Manchester City fans getting ready to attend the home fixture against Leeds United on Tuesday night are probably experiencing a familiar ominous feeling.
With a wave of positive coronavirus cases hitting clubs over the past week or so, the Premier League has reintroduced its emergency COVID-19 protocol, as well as postponing Brighton v Tottenham and Brentford v Manchester United.
It's all starting to feel a bit March 2020, isn't it?
As the pandemic started to take hold in Europe the UK watched on as the prospects of life continuing as normal diminished by the day.
City travelled to Hillsborough for an FA Cup fifth-round clash with Sheffield Wednesday on March 4, amid the first rumours that games would soon start being played behind closed doors.
A few days later, City played what turned out to be their final game before lockdown in a disappointing 2-0 loss to United at Old Trafford.
A scheduled midweek fixture against Arsenal was postponed and Gunners boss Mikel Arteta tested positive before the Premier League said enough was enough. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown.
Living in Sheffield at the time, I made the short trip from the city centre up to Hillsborough to watch City for what I feared might be the last time for quite a while.
Queuing up at the turnstiles for the away end, something felt a little strange. Of course there was the usual chatter and outbursts of song in the air, but there was also an underlying edge to the atmosphere.
At that point, most people - in the UK anyway - didn't really know how bad COVID-19 was. On the day of the game, the total number of cases in the UK reached 87 following a one-day increase of 34, a seemingly inconsequential number now but still quite unnerving news to hear while standing in a crowd of 3,000 plus.
Sergio Aguero's fortuitous goal - goalkeeper Joe Wildsmith really should have done better with a fairly tame shot - was enough to earn City a 1-0 win against uninspiring Championship opponents.
It was a decent away day - City fans had travelled across the Pennines en masse despite the awkward Wednesday evening scheduling and were in fine voice - but my enjoyment of the match was overshadowed by a feeling that things weren't about to get better any time soon.
City fans heading to the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday might have a similar feeling to 21 months ago. Who knows what the next few weeks hold for professional football - and wider society as a whole - in the UK as the Omicron variant spreads at an increasing rate.
Hopefully we don't get to a stage where games are once again played behind closed doors; we've all put up with enough fake crowd noise on TV to last a life time. At the same time, there are far more important things at stake.
The best thing match-going supporters can do is to wear face masks in crowded, poorly ventilated areas like concourses and bars, and to get their booster jabs.
Unlike in March 2020, we have the tools to help save our national pastime - let's use them.
