It’s been a popular topic since late April: how will high school athletics in my area look when we finally get the kids playing again?

In Central Mass., we have a good idea now that the Mid-Wach Leagues — combined with several Worcester County Athletic Conference schools — have issues protocols and guidelines for, at the very least, the Fall I season, which starts Friday.

While the 22-page document has plenty about sanitizing benches and game balls and equipment before and after use, there are a few things of interest to the general public.

Schools may not play outside of their pod

Interesting to see that certain schools who have long histories together — Fitchburg and Leominster, for instance — won’t play against each other this fall. The Red Raiders will play Oakmont Regional, Gardner, Quabbin Regional, as well as Narragansett Regional and Murdock, while the Blue Devils will only play Wachusett Regional, Algonquin Regional, Westboro, and Shrewsbury, their traditional Mid-Wach A calendar.

That means that even if you have long-standing relationships with schools outside of the pod (Fitchburg with Lunenburg, St. Bernard’s, North Middlesex; Leominster with Nashoba, Bromfield), you can’t play them. The only exception for this is golf.

It also means fewer phone calls should a school contract an outbreak of COVID-19, as schools have to alert all schools in the pod as well as the MIAA within 24 hours to let them know if they can play.

No visiting teams allowed fans, access to school buildings

It’s interesting that no visiting teams will have access to bathrooms or locker rooms inside the site of competition. It’s not a rare occurrence to have a visiting team coach ask the home team coach if their kids can go in and use the bathroom after a bus ride. That’s a no for now. There are expected to be temporary facilities at game sites.

Fans of the home team — mainly, parents — will be required to wear masks as well as display a league-issued lanyard at the site of competition. Players will receive two upon making the team Until guidelines change, the home team will be the only team allowed supporters. And no student cheering sections, either.

EEA guidelines suggest that only 100 people will be allowed at the site of competition, and that is the maximum: for soccer, for instance, a maximum of 22 players per team. That’s automatically 44. Two refs, 46. A trainer, 47, the AD, 48, the game administrator if not the AD, 49. Add in a max of 44 parents, that’s 93.

And everyone must sanitize upon entry. Athletes are required to have six masks with them and sweat-laden masks are of no use.

Roster rules are fairly strict

While soccer and field hockey will have a full arsenal of players — 22 maximum per level, home and away — the other two sports, cross country and golf, will be under tighter roster parameters.

For cross country, for instance, a home team can have an unlimited roster. All the kids can run.

However, when a team is on the road, it’s limited to 10. That means coaches will have to make some really difficult choices and have to explain to their kids that some won’t be competing all the time.

Coaches would almost have to treat away dual meets as if they were the district championship or one of the invitationals. With only 10 runners on the road, it makes sense that coaches will take their 10 fastest runners, or their nine fastest and a senior who may not be as fast, but it would be the last visit to this particular school, or something along those lines.

In golf, 10 golfers are allowed at home, with six allowed on the road.