GVA headaches indicative of volunteer dry-up

HOW long before the Sports Commission will have to ask us taxpayers to pay the salaries for people running sport? This week, the Guernsey Volleyball Association announced they were on the brink of folding as nobody was willing to fill the key roles of chairman and secretary. Both the GVA's annual meeting and subsequent EGM had failed to find someone to take on the roles and constitutionally they cannot continue.

A couple of years back, basketball were in a similar predicament when John Mountford announced he was taking a well-earned rest from the lead role.

Mountford, a fantastic sports volunteer for cricket, too, agreed to stay on until a replacement could be found and subsequently Patrick Ogier stepped in.

Recently these pages saw former Guernsey 1st XV rugby coach Colin McLatchie warn that unless GRUFC chairman Adie Le Page was given help, the green-and-whites had no chance of staying on the coat-tails of the ambitious Caesareans.

Rugby was over-reliant on one man's labour of love, McLatchie said, and in how many other sports is the same true?

Mark Latter trebles as president, secretary and dog's body at the Guernsey Cricket Association.

It is a concern for island sport and the worrying shortage of volunteers is likely to only get worse.

This week's slick, very different and difficult to get in and out of - it was at the Bon Port - GFA awards night, highlighted the volunteer shortage.

Where, for example, would St Martin's be without Henry Davey and Louie Laine, the latter well into his 80s?

Vale Rec are a little more fortunate in that they have Tony Blondel, Tony Smith and Dave Le Noury.

We live in an age when every year fewer are willing to move into serious sports administration or volunteer.

In time, some big-name clubs could go to the wall.

Within 20 years I suspect the Sports Commission will be in need of really meaningful States funding to pay individuals to steer forward sports like volleyball.

It could be that one individual will one day be paid a respectable salary to be chairperson of one sport in the morning and of another after lunch.

That would be a sorry situation to reach, but it just might happen.

More urgently required than paid sports leaders is an islandwide sports travel coordinator.

The job of booking inter-island, cross-channel or overseas fixtures is often one massive headache in which the sport not only has to pay above the odds, but also loses precious funding due to punishing booking arrangements airlines operate.

Team sports such as cricket and football have long benefited from back-to-backs with other teams when travelling inter-island.

Just imagine the benefits if it could also be done regularly when travelling Guernsey-UK or Guernsey-France?

Nor will it be necessarily over-expensive to operate and may not even need to be partially-funded by the sports commission if a dozen or so major sports work together to cover the sort of salary which could fund someone on a near full-time basis.

Jersey FA presidential candidate Norman Parslow recently and eloquently spoke on the issue, pointing out the major benefits of back-to-backs between the islands and the UK.

Currently travel is done by individuals already with a full-time job, with no idea of the requirements of other sports and no time to phone around and discover if it is possible to have a football squad flying out and a hockey team come the other way.

Sports travel costs are steepling so why not a unified approach to finding a way to save?