THE Guernsey Football Association have avoided a massive own goal afterre-visiting a decision to switch next week’s Jeremie Cup final.

Inside Track has learned that both finalists – St Martin’s and North – were so angered by the board decision that they proposed not turning up if the GFA insisted on bringing the game forward a day to the Friday evening so as to avoid a clash with the first day of the Clydesdale Bank International Tournament featuring Norwich City, Hearts, Jersey Scottish and Guernsey Rovers.

I’m glad that the GFA has seen sense.

FOOTE’S LANE looked a picture on Tuesday night for that thrilling Clydesdale Bank International Guernsey FA Cup final, which was both a cracking advertisement for the club game and the ground itself.

Those Combined Counties League sides, who are used to playing in front of a few dozen, are in for a shock when they visit next season should the FA Leagues Committee vote GFC in on Tuesday.

To see this superb facility finally utilised by a team sport on a weekly basis will warm the cockles of those at Culture and Leisure who, long ago, saw the potential for big games on a regular basis down there.

Next season and beyond will, at last, see a good return on their investment to justify fully the department’s not insignificant outlay on maintaining a quality venue.

It could never be just about being an athletics facility, although, saying that, the GIAAC’s position at the ground must not be taken for granted and trampled on by football and rugby.

Some athletics people are already irritated to be ushered out of the way as soon as football, in particular, comes knocking to use the ground.

Athletics, rightly, point out that there is only one running track and they cannot go elsewhere.

That is a simplistic and selfish view as far as I’m concerned AS LONG as the sport does not see its thrice-weekly sessions further disrupted than they already are and were this week when, for some bizarre reason, the FA Cup final was played on Tuesday when it could easily have been accommodated on the Wednesday.

As a result, the vast majority of the GIAAC track and field people went without their sport at an important time of the calendar.

Athletics training on Tuesdays, Thursdays and a weekend is not done simply for convenience, but due to sporting science and it is important it is not disrupted.

That said, I have every faith in C and L to keep an eye on the usage issue, but to my mind it would be beyond the pale if Guernsey FC suddenly wished to use it for midweek training at the expense of the runners.

ESTIMATIONS of Tuesday’s FA Cup final crowd range from 600 to 800, a fair proportion of the game youngsters from the North minis section who brought added colour to the spectacle.

As for the game I was not at all surprised to see Angus Mackay produce a man-of-the-match performance that should rubber-stamp his Muratti final spot.

The guy is a class footballer and our most complete player.

After two leg breaks and a year out of the game when he arrived to play for Athletics, he was understandably rusty and lacking in confidence for the half-season he played last campaign.

But now settled at North he is emphasising his undoubted class which I suggest would make him capable of filling any defensive or midfield role the island needs against Jersey and at the NatWest Island Games.

And talking of such, it was not that long ago Darren Martin, another Northerner, was being talked about in such tones as a complete player, by local standards of course.

Sadly, his recent career has been

stifled by a persistent foot problem and I even hear suggestions that he is ready to quit the game at the age of just 25, so disheartened he has become with the injury.

I am sure there will be many, and not just North supporters, who will hope that this skilful, versatile and silky footballer, can somehow overcome the problem and return re-charged and pain-free next season.

Darren, you are too young and too good to call it a day.

Matt Loaring, Tuesday’s extra-time match-winner, has experienced his own share of frustration these past couple of years with hamstrings as brittle as athlete Tom Druce.

It was heartening to see a good lad and a true blue young Northerner, and, of course, a product of their outstanding youth development section, take the plaudits with his winning goal.

ONE major hope I have for Guernsey FC next season and years beyond is that it adopts a playing strip of real class.

Am I alone in wanting to see the

Muratti final combatants walk out at the Track on glisteningly sunny spring afternoon, with white a predominant colour once again.

The current Guernsey and Jersey strips are yuk and lack the style and class of the old strips of the 60s and 70s when we would walk out in all white bar an all green torso.

Colin Renouf and co. looked resplendent in the old kits, but none more so than the Mo Vowden’s and Rory Crick’s of the sister isle select, whose red variation on ours always struck this then young observer as as classy as anything in the team’s play.

As much as I’m looking forward to this year’s final the sight of us in all green, as if we were Ireland, and Jersey in bland red shirts, white shorts and red socks, does not stir my emotions as the old designs did.

CYCLING, or should I say Guernsey Velo Club, take a bow.

The sport is the big mover in local sporting circles and if ever there was an indication of its remarkable progress of recent years, it came with the recent road race in which 71 riders came to the start line.

Blimey, at this rate, we could have a series of local tours and peletons haring along our early Sunday morning roads.

Unfortunately, our chronic road access, which seems to take out a major road on the Velo Club’s roster of regular routes every summer, would prevent such an occurrence but all aspects of cycling – road, mountain biking, downhill, criteriums – appear to be growing and the development programme is a credit to the entire sport, not just its highly active and forward-thinking president, Gary Wallbridge.

The same, of course, could be said about fencing.

I was staggered to hear that the fantastic development programme Dr Rob Harnish has put in place at the Elizabeth College has transformed the University of Bath from no-hopers on the British University scene, to serious challengers thanks to the introduction of a stream of Old Elizabethans.

Harnish is churning out budding d’Artagnans at a phenomenal rate and I just love his audacity of targeting to produce one GB representative in every weapon at under-17 and under-20 level within a time span of five to 10 years.

Now that is a brilliant challenge.FrnkGothITC Hv BT FrnkGothITC Bk BT 18pt