Guernsey’s under-17 team return to the field in Belfast this week. (0607251)
TH-ANTASTIC THURSDAY. Still a few weeks away from the end-of-season inter-insulars and cup finals, mid-July is normally a quiet time for Guernsey sport.
Not this year and not Thursday past.
How about this little lot: Dale Garland goes for Olympic qualification at a European Permit meeting in Loughborough, Heather Watson plays for a place in the quarter-finals of the latest ITF junior tournament in Austria, our most talented table tennis juniors continue their European Championship quest in Italy and the finest age-group cricket team the island has ever seen take on The Netherlands in the ECC’s Division One tournament in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
This is Guernsey sport circa 2008: international and forever climbing the global tree, rendering questions such as who might win Senior County Division One [formerly the Priaulx League] next season, stultifyingly boring.
But thanks to the ambition of many island sports administrators and the raw talent of success- hungry youngsters, Sarnian sport is, away from football, going places.
There is a size-12 step in the door of top-class motor racing thanks to Andy Priaulx, we have one of the best women lawn bowlers in the world and, thanks to young Miss Watson, we have hit the Wimbledon stage.
Next stop the Tour de France with Tobyn Horton, Dan Arblaster or James McLaughlin joining one of sport’s finest armchair spectacles? Given their talent, it’s not such a daft idea.
Much has been written or aired on the excellence of Watson, Loveridge and Co, but the combined skills of the island’s under-17 cricket squad not so.
With Tim Ravenscroft to the fore, the side has showcased the superb work of the Guernsey Cricket Board and the Guernsey Young Cricketers Development Committee over recent years.
As a single year group they could be our best yet, even better than the terrific Elizabeth College first XI honed in Jack Reddish’s final years at the school in the very early 70s.
As most of that team were probably already old enough to buy a celebration drink afterwards, Reddish’s lads, a team containing the likes of Keith Howick, Mike Webber, Richard de Figuieiredo, John Le Lievre, David Pearce, John Hunter, John Holt, John Henry, Ken Cross and Rob Spensley, even managed to win the then-equivalent of today’s Carey Olsen GCA Championship.
Given an additional two years maturity, the team being coached by Jeremy Frith in Belfast this week could provide some welcome alternatives to the rather stale looking senior island side we have at present.
Why, a good case could be made for keeping them together as a group and adding them to the 2009 and 2010 championship line-up.
They would certainly provide better cricket than some of the sides’ paltry efforts this year.
Elsewhere, the never-ending saga of football’s future depressingly drags on.
And just when the GFA thought real hope of hanging on to the social leagues, the Business League pulled the plug on the umbrella body’s compromise deal.
In a nutshell, the offer of five per club being able to play in both social leagues was not enough for Rod Hamon’s bunch, who clearly don’t want to see, let alone appreciate, the bigger picture of the development and future health of local football which I fear will gradually descend into a sport with no serious ambition and be played largely by young men with little dedication or loyalty.
Business league decision spoils a ‘Th-antastic’ day
TH-ANTASTIC THURSDAY. Still a few weeks away from the end-of-season inter-insulars and cup finals, mid-July is normally a quiet time for Guernsey sport.
Not this year and not Thursday past.
How about this little lot: Dale Garland goes for Olympic qualification at a European Permit meeting in Loughborough, Heather Watson plays for a place in the quarter-finals of the latest ITF junior tournament in Austria, our most talented table tennis juniors continue their European Championship quest in Italy and the finest age-group cricket team the island has ever seen take on The Netherlands in the ECC’s Division One tournament in Bangor, Northern Ireland.
This is Guernsey sport circa 2008: international and forever climbing the global tree, rendering questions such as who might win Senior County Division One [formerly the Priaulx League] next season, stultifyingly boring.
But thanks to the ambition of many island sports administrators and the raw talent of success- hungry youngsters, Sarnian sport is, away from football, going places.
There is a size-12 step in the door of top-class motor racing thanks to Andy Priaulx, we have one of the best women lawn bowlers in the world and, thanks to young Miss Watson, we have hit the Wimbledon stage.
Next stop the Tour de France with Tobyn Horton, Dan Arblaster or James McLaughlin joining one of sport’s finest armchair spectacles? Given their talent, it’s not such a daft idea.
Much has been written or aired on the excellence of Watson, Loveridge and Co, but the combined skills of the island’s under-17 cricket squad not so.
With Tim Ravenscroft to the fore, the side has showcased the superb work of the Guernsey Cricket Board and the Guernsey Young Cricketers Development Committee over recent years.
As a single year group they could be our best yet, even better than the terrific Elizabeth College first XI honed in Jack Reddish’s final years at the school in the very early 70s.
As most of that team were probably already old enough to buy a celebration drink afterwards, Reddish’s lads, a team containing the likes of Keith Howick, Mike Webber, Richard de Figuieiredo, John Le Lievre, David Pearce, John Hunter, John Holt, John Henry, Ken Cross and Rob Spensley, even managed to win the then-equivalent of today’s Carey Olsen GCA Championship.
Given an additional two years maturity, the team being coached by Jeremy Frith in Belfast this week could provide some welcome alternatives to the rather stale looking senior island side we have at present.
Why, a good case could be made for keeping them together as a group and adding them to the 2009 and 2010 championship line-up.
They would certainly provide better cricket than some of the sides’ paltry efforts this year.
Elsewhere, the never-ending saga of football’s future depressingly drags on.
And just when the GFA thought real hope of hanging on to the social leagues, the Business League pulled the plug on the umbrella body’s compromise deal.
In a nutshell, the offer of five per club being able to play in both social leagues was not enough for Rod Hamon’s bunch, who clearly don’t want to see, let alone appreciate, the bigger picture of the development and future health of local football which I fear will gradually descend into a sport with no serious ambition and be played largely by young men with little dedication or loyalty.
Their selfishness and stupidity know no bounds.
Article posted on 19th July, 2008 - 9.30am