TWO weeks off under Guernsey’s blue skies – black is the new sky blue, don’t you know? – and I’m still reeling from the shock of seeing our island cricket team lose ‘that’ match.
But while I was away, other things have been happening.
For a start the Senior County Division One football season has quietly got under way, but not half as quietly as the reappearance of Stuart Falla (pictured) at the helm of the Guernsey Sports Commission.
The man who steered the best-ever NatWest Island Games in 2003, returned to the helm of the GSC on 1 September, his dabble with politics behind him and he succeeded the man who had replaced him, Advocate John Greenfield.
Sport’s old cliché about never going back comes to mind, but in the Falla case, I’m very glad he has.
The man has clout, he has vision.
If he can devote the time – and I have no reason to suspect he won’t – Guernsey sport will be all the better for it.
Meanwhile, in cricket, there are continued rumblings about how best to deal with the Cobo factor.
One theory doing the rounds is that by weakening the best team in the league – by some distance – Guernsey cricket will be better and embarrassing collapses such as we saw against Jersey in the European Division Two Championship final won’t happen.
Twaddle.
The other clubs need to get their act together and the Guernsey Cricket Board has the means to help them by, I suggest, attracting a few semi-professionals into the island and distributing them around.
Wanderers have had a decent season and why?
They got their hands on a useful Aussie all-rounder in Ben Taylor to supplement Ben Driver and Ross Kneller, who were fully committed to the season.
But to expect a Cobo side which, in truth, is weaker than the ones they had five and 10 years ago when senior club cricket was stronger than it is now to yield players to other less ambitious and organised sides, is a cop out.
Island cricket will be healthier if the others improve and match Cobo, rather than the latter go down to their levels.
Rovers, surely, have the capability to blow everyone out of the water.
Like no other side, they have their own home ground with superb clubhouse facilities. If tomorrow they brought back Lee Savident from the UK in some sort of player-coach role funded from within, nobody, and least of all Cobo who have always adopted an ambitious line, could complain.
And if Savident did not fancy a full-time return, I’m sure there are dozens of overseas players who would snap up the role.
Sport will benefit from Falla’s return
But while I was away, other things have been happening.
For a start the Senior County Division One football season has quietly got under way, but not half as quietly as the reappearance of Stuart Falla (pictured) at the helm of the Guernsey Sports Commission.
The man who steered the best-ever NatWest Island Games in 2003, returned to the helm of the GSC on 1 September, his dabble with politics behind him and he succeeded the man who had replaced him, Advocate John Greenfield.
Sport’s old cliché about never going back comes to mind, but in the Falla case, I’m very glad he has.
The man has clout, he has vision.
If he can devote the time – and I have no reason to suspect he won’t – Guernsey sport will be all the better for it.
Meanwhile, in cricket, there are continued rumblings about how best to deal with the Cobo factor.
One theory doing the rounds is that by weakening the best team in the league – by some distance – Guernsey cricket will be better and embarrassing collapses such as we saw against Jersey in the European Division Two Championship final won’t happen.
Twaddle.
The other clubs need to get their act together and the Guernsey Cricket Board has the means to help them by, I suggest, attracting a few semi-professionals into the island and distributing them around.
Wanderers have had a decent season and why?
They got their hands on a useful Aussie all-rounder in Ben Taylor to supplement Ben Driver and Ross Kneller, who were fully committed to the season.
But to expect a Cobo side which, in truth, is weaker than the ones they had five and 10 years ago when senior club cricket was stronger than it is now to yield players to other less ambitious and organised sides, is a cop out.
Island cricket will be healthier if the others improve and match Cobo, rather than the latter go down to their levels.
Rovers, surely, have the capability to blow everyone out of the water.
Like no other side, they have their own home ground with superb clubhouse facilities. If tomorrow they brought back Lee Savident from the UK in some sort of player-coach role funded from within, nobody, and least of all Cobo who have always adopted an ambitious line, could complain.
And if Savident did not fancy a full-time return, I’m sure there are dozens of overseas players who would snap up the role.
Article posted on 13th September, 2008 - 9.30am