Green light for plan, but new chairman required

FOOTBALL will undergo its biggest change in its 115-year history as the Guernsey Football Association's five-year plan was ratified at its annual meeting last night.

And in its first days of a new era, it has no chairman in place and only half a board.

There were no parking spaces left at the Cobo Bay Hotel as the club's representatives turned out in force for the meeting.

Over the last few months there has been a lot of friction between the GFA and some of the clubs that saw the association's board adopt a much-criticised 'back us or sack us' policy.

But a crunch meeting that was anticipated to be fiery, instead ran smoothly and the plan was passed by a majority vote from the clubs.

It means from the start of the next season, the Jackson and Youth One Leagues will be replaced by a development league, there will be promotion and relegation between the senior leagues and all youth and women's football will be nine versus nine on three-quarter size pitches, among other things.

'We're very pleased and I think the time has come to put it to bed and move forward,' said the GFA's commercial and sponsorship director James Blower.

'We've a new season kicking off in six weeks and it's important that everybody's efforts are focused on having a successful season, culminating in success in the Muratti and the Island Games.'

St Martin's president Henry Davey was also glad to see it wrapped up.

'It was an excellent meeting and it's all been sorted out,' he said.

'We voted in favour.

Let's give it a year and see how it goes.

'We're just fed up with all the arguing and bickering.'

Rangers have backed the plan from the very beginning.

Rangers Priaulx coach Mac Gallienne was the person who came up with the development league idea.

'I'm very happy it's gone through,' he said.

'Give it a year and see what it's like. You can always fine-tune it.'

The only clubs to vote against the plan were North and Vale Rec, who each carried three votes, and Railway outfit Port City, who had one.

A formal count was not required when it turned out that the majority were voting in favour.

'We voted against it but as it's gone through, we're accepting it,' said North president Dave Finn.

'We're disappointed because we think there's a lot of loose knots to tie up but we're accepting it and getting on with it.'

Port City's Nigel Staples explained why his club voted against the plan.

The biggest bone of contention was the rule restricting players to being able to play for only one club.

'I felt it was to the detriment to our club,' said Staples.

'The one player, one club will mean that it will be a difficult decision for our players to decide whether to stay with the GFA or go into another league. I'm disappointed because the plan is messing too much with the structure of football and all at one time.

'I felt it could have been brought across better by the board and I think their dictatorship attitude got a lot of people's backs up.'

The meeting also saw upheaval on the GFA board.

The meeting noted the resignation of Dave Nussbaumer as chairman a couple of weeks after he made it clear he would be stepping down, while Chris Schofield did not seek re-election as the youth and football development director.

The same went for Graham Skuse, who had been director in charge of refereeing, while Mark Vidamour also did not put himself forward for re-election, nor did his father Jeff, as vice-chairman and acting supremo after Nussbaumer's departure.

Vidamour will concentrate in his role as the logistics officer for the Guernsey Island Games Association.

'I'm going to be too busy with the Island Games and I think if there's going to be a new chairman, they should be able to bring their own team in.'

None of the clubs put forward any nominations for chairman and vice-chairman.

The remaining board members of Blower, treasurer Ian Drillot, Albert Good and Mark Le Tissier, will now meet to decide who will take the remaining roles. Word had been going about the meeting that Le Tissier will go for chairman.

But he declined to comment, saying that a statement regarding the roles will be released by the GFA soon.