THERE’S no need to guess where today’s biggest domestic sporting audience will be.

The Green Lions have captured the imagination of the community and, it seems, the only way is up for the club.

Well, for now anyway.

We are best to remember that there will come a time – next season – when it won’t be so easy to turn over sides with impressive ease and playing the blend of football which has had old-timers and former Muratti greats such as Colin Renouf and Dave Lesbirel purring over the excellence of the Lions’ build-up play and brilliant fluidity going forward.

But, for now, let’s just bask in the light of the new club’s bright aura, the success story of Guernsey sport in 2011.

And for the disaster of the year? There can only be one winner.

It has to be the inaugural Channel Islands Athletics Championships, which at senior level – its highest – it has proved as futile as trying to stop waves at Vazon in a gale.

This was supposed to be a bright new beginning for the sport, but it has been an unmitigated disaster and the Caesareans should take all the blame.

Jersey pushed hardest for this new event to replace the traditional inter-insular, but in the arena which ultimately sells the sport to the wider public – the seniors and the elite – Jersey Spartan turned their nose up to it to the extent that only a handful of their senior athletes turned out for the second leg of the championships at FB Fields in Jersey, and they were mainly veterans. Pathetic.

GIAAC waltzed to victory in both the Burton and Le Riche trophy matches for men and women respectively, but they were the hollowest of victories.

As with cross-country in recent years, the Jersey club lacked the will for a fight, claiming fatigue at the end of the season.

Unless quick action is taken I see real trouble ahead for track and field which could lead to the sad wasting of the legacy earned by the likes of Dale Garland, Tom Druce, Lee Merrien, Kylie Robilliard and the now retired Kimberley Goodall in what has been a golden era of athletics in Guernsey.

Tough talking needs to be done and quickly, not only to salvage something from the mess we saw this year, but also the Channel Islands club which has done well enough to get where it is – British League level – but still fails to capture the imagination of all of Guernsey’s best athletes.

Track and field has been extremely fortunate to have had the backing of some very generous and supportive sponsors this past decade, but when they go – and they have not got full value for their money in recent times – the sport may have great difficulty to find adequate replacements.

With less money in the pot, subsidies will reduce, athletes will be less included to travel to test themselves, their potential will not be fully realised and fewer medals will be won at Island Games level.

The quality athletes are still there, but something needs to be done soon to ensure they serve the sport’s future interests, not only their own and that of coaches.

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INDIVIDUAL performance of September?

Forget the goalscoring exploits of Ross Allen, as brilliant as they have been, the impressive driving of Darren Warwick, fantastically nerveless and groundbreaking, and the consistent run scoring of Jeremy Frith in Malaysia, the star effort in my book comes from cyclist Tobyn Horton.

To finish sixth in a sprint finish among many of the world’s best road racers on the last stage of the Tour of Britain last Sunday, was stunning.

He may have lost ground to the great ‘Cav’, but in that mad dash for the line in Whitehall, he stayed ahead of some great cyclists and barely lost any ground on those who finished in front of him, Cavendish being the notable exception.

Horton’s Tour of Britain efforts, which included three top 25 finishes, warrants a place on this year’s CI Sports Personality shortlist.

I forgive him for trundling across the line down the field after driving all the way to Wells to see him in last week’s Tour.