Major GCA clubs give green light

A CHANNEL Islands Club Championship has moved a big step closer to being established. Feedback during a meeting of representatives of Guernsey Cricket Association Champion-ship sides on Wednesday evening fully supported the idea of a new competition.

A meeting was held in Jersey simultaneously, the outcome of which has yet to be made known.

Under the proposed format, the two islands' domestic leagues and knockout competitions would have to be completed by the

last Sunday in July under a

standardised format.

Subsequently, the top four teams from each domestic league would qualify for the CI Club Championship to be played in August and September, playing initially in two groups of four and ahead of semi-finals and the final.

The two teams finishing fifth in the domestic leagues would meet in a one-off match for the CI Minor Club Championship.

'The proposed format is fine, there are no concerns there.

'The only concern is about 2004, for two reasons,' said Piesing.

'One is that the Four-Islands Tournament is due to be take place in Guernsey in the third week of August and when you take into the account the various inter-insulars, it makes August a bit cramped.

'The other reason was, with us having potentially six teams in the championship, we may well find we have 10 weekend league games to fit in per team which would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to do.

'We know going forward from there, we can limit it to five clubs in future years, so the feeling is the whole thing should not start until 2005.'