WITH upwards of two dozen Priaulx League championships to their name and umpteen other trophies across the age-group competitions, North have been the island’s outstanding club side in more than a century of domestic football.

This week they announced their intention to stretch their reach at Northfield the ground they built up from scratch after selling their share of the Track about 40 years ago.

The chocolate-and-blues have seldom been less than ambitious and this latest proposed development is in keeping with the club’s progressive approach.

Fair play to them as they attempt to support the most successful

in-house player development strategy with facilities to match.

I hope Environment gives them the thumbs up on this one because it’s a scheme that merits it.

This is a club that has seldom let itself down and has done things properly, although I was not enamoured about their scandalous and unwarranted comments relating to the previous GFA board earlier this year.

But if they can get this development scheme off the ground they will be making the best use of the proceeds of the Stoneworkers’ Hall they sold to help pay for it and, at the same time, pay tribute to past generations of  Northerners who worked hard to make the club much money from their building in Commercial Road.

As noted above, Northerners have been a club rarely embarrassed on and off the field of play, but there was one such moment in 1963 when a rival appointed to decorate the North ‘bar’ in the North Social Club next door had the last laugh on them.

When the big moment came to uncover the North cock bird mouths dropped and steam came from ears around the room as the bird has been rebranded in black-and-white stripes.

The culprit was never officially revealed but Rex Bennet wrote a few days later that as a result of this sacred vandalism, a well-known Irish decorator/footballer was seeking political asylum in the parish of St Martin’s.

* FEW island sportsmen have published an autobiography.

Andy Priaulx’s life story was a notable exception earlier this year, then there was Ryan-Zico Black’s very different tale of a semi-pro footballer and in 2009 we can expect the official line from Matt Le Tissier.

For the record, former Southampton football watcher Graham Hiley is the man been entrusted with telling ‘Le God’s story from his early days in the play ground at a newly-built Les Genats to adoration at The Dell and beyond.

Hiley knows his subject well enough having covered 945 Saints games over 20 years before moving aside and taking over the reins as editor at www.premierleague.com

Before then local sports fans can tide themselves over by purchasing the soon-to-be-released sporting life story of Mick ‘the flying pig’ Vaudin.

Having been honoured to write its foreword, I can highly recommend a quite monumental tome which gives more name-checks to islanders than there are Jerseymen left in the sister isle.