IT’S official.

On paper, our football sides are getting worse and analysis of 100 years of Muratti records across the age-groups proves it.

By some way Guernsey is suffering its worst decade in a century of inter-insular clashes at senior level and the three development stages – under-18s, under-16s and under-15s.

Only at the relatively new under-21s, where Guernsey have dominated for the past 10 years, do the Sarnians come out on top.

Since 2000, in 40 inter-island clashes above the officially ‘friendly’ under-11s age-group, the red-and-whites have won 27 matches to our 11. Two Star Trophy games have been drawn.

It was, as it happened, the alarm of our terrible recent schoolboys record (one win in 13) and the poor performance in the 3-1 defeat at the Corbet Field a few Saturdays ago, which got me thumbing through the GFA handbook for evidence to support my suspicion that something was going badly wrong in our youth development.

And while statistics alone don’t always paint a completely true picture, they certainly point to something amiss in the domestic representative game, which has nosedived since the heady days of the 1970s and 1980s when we were on top.

Our record in the 90s was par for the course – 17 wins, 21 defeats – for an island with a smaller population.

But in the 80s the green-and-whites were comfortably the dominant island with 16 wins and just 11 defeats, a record bolstered by a terrific decade for our schoolboys: eight wins, one draw and just one defeat.

We were nearly as good in the 70s when, thanks to the performances of the under-18s and under-15s, 16 Guernsey captains lifted silverware compared to only 11 occasions for the crapauds.

But here comes the conundrum.

The 60s saw Guernsey enjoy the emergence of arguably our finest group of players, men such as Colin Renouf, John Loveridge, Gerve Brazier.

St Martin’s dominated the Upton, but come Muratti day we simply didn’t perform. One accusation I’ve heard for that poor Sarnian phase is that we tried to play too much football while Jersey got stuck in and won at all cost.

For the record, in the 60s, despite the presence of Renouf and co. Jersey’s seniors won eight games to our two, while the records at under-18 and under-15 level show the two islands to be level.

Back in the 50s the Muratti Vase spoils were equally shared while Jersey dominated at junior level. The war-torn 40s can be largely discounted as there was only provision for football from 1947 and, as their domestic game revived more swiftly, the red-and-whites enjoyed a perfect record in the nine games across the age spans.

But before the war, the Sarnians ruled the roost.

At senior level we won seven and drew one of the main 10 games in the 30s. Add that record to level-pegging scores in the juniors and schoolboys and Guernsey had plenty to crow about as Hitler quietly built up his Army, as had been the case in the 20s when the two islands recovered from losing hundreds to the First World War.

So, how objective are statistics in the hurly-burly, pumped up Muratti world when two sets of players generally fly at each other’s throats and playing pretty football is secondary?

You can’t ignore them, I say.

A worrying trend is developing and the reasons behind it are a little mystifying.

Jersey these past few years are, clearly, producing better youngsters.

This year alone has seen seven of their best boys signed up with professional clubs, while we have none, to my knowledge.

That shows that the sister isle must be doing something right.

The Jersey Centre of Excellence is a thriving body while the Sarnian version has resumed only this season after a two-year break and has ground to make up.

But surely it can’t all be down to their soccer school?

The Jersey youth leagues differ to ours in that each age-group is split into small divisions. The top flight of the under-18s is a four-team league, Division One of their under-16s, has only three sides.

Our leagues cater for all the senior clubs and we see some embarrassingly one-sided games.

In this year’s under-16s, hapless Rangers have conceded 157 goals in 17 games.

But there have been whipping boys through the decades and Guernsey have until recent times done well at junior or schoolboys level, so that can’t be singled out as a sole reason.

One Jersey source told me that Jersey’s secondary schools football scene has never been better and more competitive. On the evidence of the recent Star Trophy game the Reds’ best under-15s seemed to be more football-wise than ours.

In that 70 minutes at the Corbet Field, Jersey showed themselves as having three or four really rounded footballers in their midst, while Guernsey did not have one who stood out as an astute footballer.

Perhaps Guernsey just suffered a very bad day at the office, but in the ‘Star’ we’ve had a whole lot of them lately.

Why?

Both squads went on tour and Guernsey started their preparations earlier than ever before – before Christmas – but you could not tell come the big day.

Could it be then that while Guernsey’s under-15s did their own thing, their Caesarean counterparts benefited from their link to their Centre of Excellence working under level two coach Russel Le Feuvre. I suspect that might be it.

Generally, to my mind, Guernsey are paying the price for a lengthy spell when the conveyor belt of talent produces fit, robust youngsters, but few with any real creativity in the final third where matches are won.

Players like Ray Blondel, the Le Tissiers, Craig Allen and, most recently, Billy Page, who had that something extra special around the box.

Such skills that all the above players possessed are not coached, though. They come from inherent skill and hours of knockabout football in parks and playgrounds.

It could be said that CI football is a microcosm of the UK game as a whole and it was interesting to read Chris Waddle’s views on the ills of the national sport in The Times.

Waddle blames the UK coaching system for going into ‘overload’.

‘We coach kids two-touch football and we’ve lost the art of dribbling.

‘We’ve gone to pass and move, pass and move. But all the great teams have two or three players who can run with the ball.’

Guernsey, thankfully, still have the odd player who can make surging runs, dribble past players.

Dave Rihoy is peerless in that respect, while Glyn Dyer is capable of exciting runs, as is young Matt Loaring.

But when all is said and done the overall inter-insular records are close to what you might expect them to be when one island has a bigger pool of talent to call upon.

After 100 years of ‘Murattis’ Jersey only lead by 17, with 137 wins to our 120.

• If you have any comments on Jersey’s recent inter-insular football dominance, write to the sports desk at the Guernsey Press, Braye Road, Vale, or email us at sport@guernsey-press.com.