DALE GARLAND is hanging up his football boots for at least the next 12 months as he gives himself the best chance of winning Guernsey’s first track medal at the Commonwealth Games.
Garland (pictured) scored four early season goals for Rangers’ first team, but has missed recent games and yesterday confirmed he won’t be in action again this side of the 2010 Games next October in Delhi.
Although he still loves his football, he admitted he cannot risk getting injured, especially now that Guernsey have high hopes of fielding a first 4×400m relay squad at the four-yearly Games.
Without him to head the squad, there would, realistically, be no team.
It is a move welcomed by Tom Druce, his fellow one-lap runner and double Island Games champion over 400 and 800 metres.
‘Definitely, I’d say it is the right decision – a sensible move.
‘I knew he was thinking about it and it is good to know that he is for a year at least.’
Garland said he had been thinking about it for a while.
‘It’s a big year with the Commonwealths. I’ve got to see what I can do in Commonwealth Games year and do as well as I can.’
Garland, 29 earlier this month, reckons he has a realistic chance of an individual 400m hurdles medal in India and regards reaching the final as a minimum target.
‘I ran a PB this year and am ranked seventh in Europe.’
Two of those ahead of him are fellow Brits, the Welshmen Dai Greene and Rhys Williams, and because of that he was not included this week on the list of athletes being funded through the UK lottery.
He was not surprised but, at the same time, he said he knows he has not been forgotten, as UK Athletics will fund some trips to training stints on the mainland.
‘They obviously see that I’m in the GB set-up, which is nice.’
Garland is one of six Guernsey athletes who have attained individual standards for Delhi, but the athletics squad could be in the region of double figures as a couple of others still hope to attain the set levels and the Sarnian’s Island Games gold-medal relay squad have also achieved a standard.
Garland said that, with a little improvement, the 4×400 relay squad of himself, Druce, Hywel Robinson and Matt Bailey will be far from embarrassed in one of the most exciting events of any major games.
Garland reckons all four of the squad have the capacity for improvement over the next 12 months and if the team can run a combined two seconds faster, then that would put them at a level of other Commonwealth minnows like Sierre Leone, Botswana and Fiji.
He is encouraged by the ‘better professionalism’ of the Guernsey-based athletes, runners like Robinson who is delaying his university degree studies to properly train for the Games, and Bailey, who is receiving additional time-off from his work to up his training levels.
As for himself, he said that there will still be time for football, a sport in which he promised so much when he scored two in Guernsey’s 6-0 hammering of Jersey in the 1999 Junior Muratti at Springfield, when his athletics days are over.
The same year he was on the bench as the Greens won the Muratti 2-0 at the Track.
‘It is not the only risk factor, but playing a football match takes a lot out of me.’
Good training time he cannot afford to lose, he said, and there is also the frustration of not being able to prepare for football in the manner in which he would like.
‘Not doing any [specific] training for football is a frustration.
‘I would like to be a better player.’
Article posted on 30th October, 2009 - 2.30pm
One Article Comment
A good decision by Dale in my opinion. Although I prefer football to athletics as a general rule sacrificing lesser things to achieve a higher goal is a wise move.
There’s no point Dale risking an injury playing Guernsey league football when he has a chance of a Commonweath medal. With all due respect, when it comes to achievement they’re not in the same league.
I hope it pays off with success next year.
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