JOHN STUART knows what he wants. The new Guernsey Badminton Association president recognises that his sport is in an enviable position: many others would love to have badminton’s facilities, financial position, number of qualified coaches, young potential and history of success.

However, he wants more, especially the progression of the best juniors into senior teams. And he knows it could be a tough little task.

‘The sport in Guernsey is healthy and strong but we need something else. We cannot just assume that the sport will stay healthy,’ he said.

Juniors do not always have a club identity, said Stuart, and many drop out of the sport rather than force their way into club’s senior teams.

He knows that there are so many sports fighting for youngsters’ attention, and so badminton has to do something special to keep them.

An initiative by Ann Johnson has led to 12 members listed as part-qualified coaches.

‘But with 170 juniors we need that many; we are spreading the role.

‘Shelley Greenfield ran a night school course and that attracted three or four dozen people, all seniors.

‘Development officer Ann Johnson’s run a couple of courses, an introduction to badminton, at schools and they have been tremendously successful. We had 30 kids wanting to join the junior singles leagues.

‘Pauline Leadbeater, a stalwart in Guernsey badminton, has dozens of juniors that she looks after. But these are still not all coming through into the senior leagues, so we are not quite getting it right.

‘Bridging the gap between being a pretty good junior and being a good senior is not that great.

‘Ann Johnson has been doing a great job. However, she’s recognised a gap between the colts and the seniors, from about 16 to 18. There’s no follow-through.’

There is no reason why the juniors do not become seniors. A brief health check makes mostly encouraging reading.

The GBA is affiliated to the Badminton Association of England and complies with its requirements.

Some funding is received for the development officer, but the majority comes from the Sports Commission. There’s a membership of around 400, of whom 175 are juniors. The association’s in the black financially.

‘The GBA has been lucky: the Rohais Hall was donated by Ossie Langlois – that’s a heck of a financial kick-off.

‘We also had a Sport Aid grant to extend the hall, but that was paid off last year, eight or 10 years ahead of when we expected to. Sport has to be run as a business.’

On the down side, the at-times lethargic response to local tournaments grates with Stuart. He wants a great response from all club players.

‘The open tournament is one of the best in the British Isles and always attracts plenty of entries. However, sometimes we struggle to get entries for local tournaments. We need to get higher numbers in those events.

‘We have some very good players and they are often the winners. It might be that the others see that they have no chance of winning and so don’t bother entering. I want to have all these players involved.

‘The county team puts out two teams and usually does very well. But the county squad is almost run as a separate club and the training is very well attended, whereas the regular club training sometimes is less so.

‘There are eight or nine clubs in the GBA, so you could say that the majority of the work should be done by the clubs but badminton is not like football which has a strong, independent club identity.

‘It is very tricky to get the balance between the very top players and the good club players.

‘The league system at times suffers from a lack of commitment: some of the better players can’t always be bothered.

‘The saying ﾓif it ain’t broke, don’t fix itﾔ is true. It isn’t ﾓbrokeﾔ, so I am just going to do a bit of tinkering. It’ll probably take two or three years.

‘I need to do a bit of tinkering around the edges. I want to make the running of the GBA more transparent for our members.’

Stuart’s committee is eight strong, though the buck stops with him.

‘I now have the absolute say in where the sport goes from here.

‘We can’t afford to rest on our laurels.

‘There are tremendous prospects in our junior ranks, therefore the prospect for ongoing medals at Island Games and success in inter-insulars must be fantastic.’