'The Lane' gains a new, unwanted triple jump pit

THE summer track and field season is up and running and the GIAAC have gained another triple jump pit.

This one, positioned just outside the Footes Lane penalty area at the north end of the ground, doesn't have a synthetic run-up and a take-off board, but the sand appears deep enough to be able to take a measure.

When used for football, players look at it with understandable suspicion, as to be trapped in there with the ball at your feet is akin to being that rabbit in the proverbial car headlights.

Forget the awful winter weather, forget the suggestion from some quarters that there is not a real drainage problem, forget Culture and Leisure are pushed for cash.

The Footes Lane pitch that I and 1,3OO-plus other fans witnessed last weekend, has become an embarrassing eyesore.

It is not just bad news for a good footballing team such as GFC who are bringing in untold revenue levels to the department, it is bad for the image of Guernsey sport.

It has to be sorted.

I remain deeply unconvinced as to how the situation is to be remedied as I strongly suspect – and have seen the evidence with my own eyes after viewing this pitch at close-quarters pretty much week in, week out for the best part of a decade since it was laid – that it cannot drain sufficiently well to sustain the combined battering it receives from rugby and football (the latter at every level from the FA Vase semi-final to the Sunday Soccer League).

For the life of me I don't know why the offending areas have not been dug out and replaced with new turf.

I fail to believe that there is no good turf available somewhere in the island to patch up supposedly the jewel in the crown of Guernsey sporting venues.

My investigations on turf transfer, the sort that has been urgently required at Footes Lane, is that it can be done easily enough and in a manner which would allow play within 24 hours.

C&L meanwhile are mulling over what to do and Mike O'Hara, its football-loving minister, boasted only last Sunday (while GFC slugged it out with Raynes Park Vale across the 'Footes Lane Sands'), 'It will be sorted'. Will it?

This observer is unconvinced and my pessimism has much to do with the state of C&L finances and an apparent fingers-crossed policy that it won't pelt down with rain again next winter.

But who will pay for digging it up and starting again?

It should not be GFC.

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'RULES are rules,' said Tiger Woods at Augusta last weekend, and it was a sentiment Garry Cortez shared this week when the man tasked with keeping the domestic football fixture list in order, was asked for his thoughts on Vale Rec being penalised with a default loss for misreading an Old Vic Cup kick-off time.

Bels had got to the ground for the scheduled 6pm start. Vale Rec, despite a club Twitter message reminding players of the early

kick-off, still had it in their heads that the game was, according to an outdated fixture list, 7.30pm at the Track. To back them up, the GFA's own website even stated that.

But Rec weren't reading from the same script as Bels and the fixtures secretary.

Consequently, they did not show up in time, exiting the cup the week after their Under-18 league hopes had been damaged by Rovers, a club again seemingly riddled with internal turmoil, giving two walkovers despite their then healthy third-place position.

All in all, a very poor week for football development.

I don't blame Mr Cortez. I don't blame Bels.

I have sympathy with Vale Rec Under-18s coach Martin Scott who owned up to his error and I sympathise with a few hard-working people down at beleaguered Port Soif.

But, put it all together, it really is a poor show that nobody is putting the GAME first, and, at the same time,

forgetting that the youngsters might be very keen to have a game and should be given every opportunity to play football in a season wrecked by bad weather.

Rovers' conduct is at best disappointing, but in my eyes very poor.

To chuck in the towel so close to the season's end, and with it potentially make a crucial intervention in the title race, is out of order.

Just who is calling the shots, or not, down at a club with NO points to show from a 24-match Priaulx League campaign, gives walkovers at first-team level and, now in the one area where they like to suggest they are making real progress – youth development – are showing scant regard for others and harming the integrity of the under-18s competition.

There will, of course, be excuses, there always is.

But just as Tiger Woods should have looked at himself in the mirror and concluded he must withdraw himself from the Masters for the good of the sport, Belgraves, the League Management Committee fixtures man and Rovers should have stopped and considered their wider responsibilies for a moment.

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THE 150th edition of Wisden is out, but within its 1,584 pages, something is sadly missing.

For the first time in living memory and, perhaps much longer, there is no reference to Elizabeth College within the schools section.

No school averages – not a jot.

In some ways it is no surprise because, very sadly, for an establishment which has produced so many generations of fine cricketers for the island, cricket does not seem so important these days, or certainly offers an impression that it is not.

Meanwhile, Jack Reddish, 'Micky' Manchester and many other old College cricket legends, will be turning in their graves.

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NO DOUBT as to the domestic performance of the week, the record-breaking 1,500m run of Natalie Whitty.

Her transformation from useful basketballer to middle-distance runner of growing standing, is a shot in the arm for herself, her coach, Geoff King, and the science behind local track and field.

Athletics can be a hard slog, but the commitment and staggering improvement Whitty has made in a relatively short time, illustrates what is achievable with the necessary level of determination and ambition.

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JIMMY GREAVES will have played on some terrible pitches in his time, but he was a player of such brilliance, such balance and touch, he could have played football on the rocks stretching out from Cobo and still not lost possession.

Footes Lane, even in its recent state, was better than many of the uneven mud-baths of the old days – something which no doubt will crop up in his talking stint at a Tottenham Hotspur special at The Farmhouse on 29 May.

Always good entertainment, 'Greavsie' will have two more Spurs legends of the past

alongside him that night, namely Steve Perryman and Alan Gilzean.

Comedian Barry Williams comperes the night for which dinner tickets are available at £75 per head.