Roberts exploring CI League possibility

GUERNSEY hockey's new restructuring programme will reshape the sport for existing and future generations. The possibility of resurrecting a Channel Islands League is one of the many options being explored.

The Guernsey Hockey Association have been dissolved and has been replaced by Guernsey Hockey LBG.

Due to ever increasing interest within the sport, its governing body has been restructured and it has gone down the route of other popular sports in becoming a properly incorporated company.

Its status will give more protection to people involved in the sport, which has nearly 300 registered senior players and hundreds of juniors.

Andy Roberts has been appointed as the Guernsey Hockey LBG board's new chief executive, Matthew Godfrey its finance director and Andrew Lindsay is the director of junior hockey development.

New committees have been formed.

'We are trying to move hockey forward to its next level - it has expanded dramatically over the last few years and we are now looking at the next stage,' said Roberts.

'It's part of the natural evolution of the sport - it's not a revolution and we are looking long-term.'

He met with the Jersey Hockey Association two days ago to discuss the possibility of resurrecting the Channel Islands League and the feedback from the Caesareans was positive.

'It's probably two years away minimum and we would have to look at sponsors and absorbing costs,' he said.

Funding was the biggest stumbling block last time.

European ambitions would appear even further away.

'Both Guernsey and Jersey do reasonably in the HA Trophy and aspirations would become higher in future if we progressed further in that,' said Roberts.

There are also plans in the near future to approach Culture and Leisure to discuss resurfacing the 13-year-old Foote's Lane all-weather playing surface with a water-based pitch.

'That has to be in conjunction with the States because they own the land,' he said.