I READ somewhere this week, and it wasn’t in the Beano, that we’re coming out of recession.

Try telling the Guernsey Football Association that and its chairman might well say: ‘You are having a laugh’.

These remain stressful and tight times for the Guernsey Football Association, who this week lost the financial backing of its development centre.

Hard-up Pompey, its sponsors, were not only ignoring the demands of HM Revenue and Customs and trying to sell a dummy on a winding-up order, but also its Guernsey creditors.

Without a league sponsor, no Muratti backer after Cimandis ended its agreement last year, its women’s football strategy teetering on the brink and no end to the stand-off with the social leagues and the leakage of talent to those formats, the governing body of football is not having a good time.

Oh yes. Before I forget, there is also the worst winter weather most of us can remember.

But Mark Le Tissier, with his small board of hard-working directors supporting him, emerges with credit for his firm views, unstinting efforts and steadying influence.

Thankfully, most in football recognise that these are not easy times and the chairman’s outwardly equable nature gives me the confidence that, with a bit of luck, an upturn in the economy and some decent results on the football field – a Muratti win and glory in the Carlsberg FA National System Cup for starters – that the one they call Sticks will stick it out for some years to come.

Football needs calm leadership and, never more than now, blanket support from all the senior clubs and its officials, which, in the main, it has.

So what now for the association?

Before too long a decision will have to be made on whether to retain the under-21 development league or revert to under-18s.

I understand that the clubs are fairly split on it which, if that is the case, the GFA’s stance will probably swing it one way or the other.

I hope the under-21s stay with new restrictions on the use of over-age players.

Not so much the number who can play in any one game, currently three, but how often they play.

There is also the role of Division Two to take into consideration.

For a start, is it worth keeping?

If the GFA can talk the Saturday and Sunday Leagues into coming back under its jurisdiction, then I would make a case for charter standards clubs to be restricted to one senior side, their under-21 development XI and an over-35 side above the existing youth system, and dump all the second string sides.

Division Two football in its current format is a useless competition because it simply isn’t a proper one with an even playing field in terms of the rules.

The rules allow desperate clubs to field who they want and, because of that situation coupled with no promotion or relegation, how can it be described as a fair and worthy competition?

Not only that, I see growing evidence that senior clubs do not have the manpower, playing numbers and committee to run an operation which has its foundation in an era when men queued up to be involved with their club. But that is no longer the case.

Clubs are being run, in the main, by a handful of very committee people. Those individuals are under huge pressure to remain committed, but also staying alive and on two feet for the good of their club and the business, which is what they mostly are with clubhouses to run on top of worrying about winning matches and developing individuals.

It’s all too much I believe, but take the second strings away and life would become easier and no less competitive.

Those who can’t get a game in Division One, over-35s or under-21s can go and play in the social leagues.

The best scenario for ALL and the game as a whole, remains for the social leagues to come back and for a multi-divisional senior competition headed by what we now know as Division One.

Such a structure with promotion and relegation between all senior divisions can suit the needs of everyone and, with it, provide a major shot in the arm for the local game.

Throw in a cup competition or two and you have the answer. Why doesn’t it happen?

Influential people in the social leagues want their freedom to go their ‘simply football’ ways, and will also claim it is too expensive to be a part of the GFA.

But what they forget is that all the while they stay away and do not work with the only recognised governing body for the sport, the sport suffers.

Take personalities and sheer stubborness out of it and it’s so easy to solve.