THE man behind one of Guernsey’s fastest growing sports said goodbye to the island at the weekend.

In the summer of 2003, a handful of people, mainly ex-pat New Zealanders, would gather at Cambridge Park on Sunday afternoons to play touch rugby.

Now, five years later, more than 400 men and women are participating in the sport.

The person who helped organise those initial informal sessions and who oversaw the sport’s staggering development as Guernsey Touch’s chairman was Andrew Hutton (pictured).

But, sadly for the sport, the 33-year-old is on his way back home to Auckland with his wife and young child.

‘I’m pretty chuffed with it,’ said the unassuming Kiwi about the sport’s development locally. I can feel like I’ve not only come here and used the place, I’ve given something back. At the end of the day, I did it for me because I wanted to play touch, but I can’t believe where it’s gone to.’