This Is Guernsey

By Rob Batiste

FOR all football’s ills, the GFA senior clubs can proudly put rival team sports to shame in at least a couple of areas.

1 – they all boast their own grounds and have club facilities which are the envy of clubs of similar level up and down England.

2 – they have not sold their soul, taken the money of sponsors, and run.

Look at the Priaulx League table and, refreshingly, there is still not a sponsor’s name in sight.

Picking up the new, pocket-sized Guernsey Cricket Association handbook this week, I read the club contact list with a mixture of mystification and exasperation. What happened to the old fashioned Castel CC?

I’ll tell you what has happened. As the island becomes increasingly affluent, the sportsman gets tighter, his pockets ever shorter unless they are standing in the bar.

Mavericks was a good name for a cricket club, its players merging from the remnants of the defunct Taverners and the still functional but evening league outfit-only, St Pierre.

Now they are Argyll Investment CC, but for how long before they either fold or re-appear under another guise?

A quick glance at the list of 29 clubs playing under the GCA banner reveals that only eight do not carry a sponsor as a prefix to their traditional name and five have gone the whole hog and sold their name, if not to the highest bidder, one which will happily contribute a significant amount to kit and fees.

Thankfully, some proudly refuse to budge and still stand tall.

Clubs such as Pilgrims, Salemites, Sylvans and Vagabonds.

But cricket isn’t the worst example of a sport selling out.

Guernsey’s dominant netball club have axed the Rangers suffix to go with Nerine.

In basketball, there is a league crammed with stockbrokers, garages, hairdressers, estate agents, window firms and sundry businesses.

Hockey and volleyball are just as culpable.

But our Priaulx clubs bravely and commendably forge on, keeping the name that has given them real sporting heritage at the forefront of their image.

It’s not that they can’t do without a cash injection.

They all rely on a degree of sponsorship, but the name is sacrosanct. It’s a shame more sporting clubs don’t carry such high values.

n DISNEY to sponsor Rebel League?

It’s a headline beyond comprehension, but appropriate if Guernsey’s two social football leagues press ahead with plans to break away from the GFA and go it alone down the Mickey Mouse route.

Because, and I’m sure they don’t fully appreciate the consequences of their actions should they do resign their GFA affiliation, that’s what their rebel competition will be: Mickey Mouse.

They might as well go the whole hog, take down the posts at Delancey, Beau Sejour and Victoria Avenue – the only pitches available to them – and use jumpers for goal posts.

It will be park football at its worst. No refs, no insurance and a license for thuggery, disorder and litigation.

It won’t last because it has all happened before with the first Rebel League which operated in the 60s. It was fun for a while but a jumpers-for-goalposts approach is dangerous and players will very soon see through it.

I can see the social boys’ reluctance to see their wings clipped and have restrictions placed on them.

But they are not seeing the big picture, which is a ruling association attempting to do its best for the game as a whole, raise standards and put into place a structure which will maximise the potential of every kid who ever dons a pair of football boots.

The GFA knows its responsibilities. Its senior clubs seemingly are now accepting theirs for the good of the game and, so too, should the affiliated social leagues.