LMC hurting its own league
SO, in the end the rain won the day.
SO, in the end the rain won the day.
No football this weekend, no stupid clashes, no need to make heart-rending decisions about who, say, Dave Rihoy, should play for.
It is enough to make me bang my head against the nearest goalpost and scream 'NO!!'.
And while I'm it, I might as well also scream 'Why, Why, Why?' and 'Stop It Please!'.
As it happens – fortunately or unfortunately, depending on which way you view these things – due to a waterlogged pitch, the scheduled North-Bels match last night did not impinge in any way on the Guernsey FC-Spelthorne game, which has also sunk without trace due to this December onslaught of rain-laden weather systems from the south west.
Colin Fallaize, the Green Lions' FC assistant coach, made a telling comment this week when he responded to my question about selection for the next GFC game: 'I'm glad you asked for my opinion,
because nobody else does.'
He went on to say: 'It is not the best set-up to have a top game on Friday, because there is another top game on Saturday.'
But sadly, yet again, there has been an absolutely needless complication, caused by plonking a big domestic game the night before a match for what is, in reality, the island side – Guernsey's very own team and one which its best players wish to play for above anything else.
And because of that, players like Dave Rihoy unfairly faced a particularly tough decision as to which shirt he should pull on this weekend.
Now I have no inside knowledge about what the Green Lions' starting line-up would have been today, but the absence of Matt Loaring this weekend had created a place for someone to slot in alongside Ross Allen up front.
Rihoy, surely, was in the driving seat to take that place, having played impressively for 35 minutes as a sub in Knaphill last weekend.
But he is also a loyal Belgrave, their star man, their best hope of pulling something special out of the hat to beat North and keep his club in the thick of the title race.
He needs games to recover full fitness, but not two in the space of 18 hours. And I strongly suspect that, had the weather been fair this weekend, Bels would have had to kick off against North without their main man.
Bels fans, quite naturally, will have expected him to play for the blues. But in terms of career, ambition and another potential Muratti cap to be won, (not to mention the thrill of playing in front of a 1,000-plus crowd for your island, as opposed to a maximum couple of hundred watching an inferior standard domestic game) he had a tough choice to make.
I did not envy him.
Some will consider a Friday night game before a GFC match a viable alternative to not playing on a Saturday in direct opposition to the Green Lions, but I disagree.
Friday night is too close to a Saturday afternoon to be anything less than a clash for those who are expected to play more than 90 minutes of football on a weekend.
It would surely have been more sensible to play the North-Bels game the following Monday or Tuesday?
There are no floodlit Priaulx games scheduled at all next week and there are just not enough evening kick-offs full stop, due to half the Priaulx clubs telling the man who puts together the league and cup fixtures that they still wanted to play home games on a Saturday afternoon regardless of whether GFC were playing or not.
That instruction certainly did not help Garry Cortez in his task and has not helped the main league competition.
Yet Rihoy, and anyone else who is contending for an island place and has yet to opt out of domestic football to concentrate on the UK league and cup campaign, have again had to make these difficult decisions which are creating an imbalance in this season's chase for the Priaulx League championship. It was always going to be a transitional season in terms of coming to terms with a major new team on the block, but football has singularly failed to minimise the problems relating to Guernsey FC's introduction. And there has been nowhere near enough discussion by the people running the game into how the island's biggest team sport should run as smoothly as possible for the best outcome for all.
What we have been left with is the destination of the Priaulx League title being largely in the hands of one person – and, it should be pointed out, that is not Garry Cortez, (the North president who doubles as the GFA fixtures secretary) but Tony Vance. His selection of GFC sides has largely determined how strong or weak the top domestic sides are from week to week. Yet it need not have been down to Vance's picks were the domestic fixtures not so confrontational, as we have seen again this week.
But, here is the crux of the matter. When you place domestic title clashes in direct opposition to GFC games it is both disrespectful to those who are going to wear the shirt in the Muratti, and those people preparing that national team to beat Jersey without, might I add, at no capital or administrative expense to the Guernsey Football Association. Also, at the same time, it is disrespectful to the main domestic league competition which, those reducing number who still knock GFC, wish to see maintain its strength and glamour.
Because there is only ever going to be one winner in this battle of sporting wills – the quasi-national side that is the Green Lions. The League Management Committee, (which now has responsibility for domestic fixtures) must realise that they are hurting their own competitions by making these current ill-advised fixture choices.
They are demeaning the Priaulx League by making it a more unbalanced competition than it need be. It is high time some serious talking and banging of heads – and not of the 'mine against a goalpost' variety – was done.
