Tracing the very best club by club

ROSS ALLEN'S six-goal destruction of Vale Rec in the cup last weekend ranks as one of the finest modern displays of pure finishing.

Why, it was even reminiscent of his free-scoring father Craig before he hopped off to the United States and made his money on the US Soccer scene.

You could make a strong argument for Craig being the greatest goal scorer in the history of Guernsey's oldest club, formed in October 1893. But where young Ross comes in the list of Rangers greats is another matter.

In 115 years of Priaulx League football many a great player has pulled on the famous red-and-black shirt, but as yet nobody has put down on paper any serious consideration as to who were the best XI players in the club's history.

Not until now anyway.

Over the next couple of months Saturday Nostalgia will embark on a whopping club by club review of the best ever footballers to have played the game for each team. Rangers - being the oldest - are appropriately the first to be analysed by a panel of local football experts put together by the Guernsey Press.

The panel includes Alec Le Noury, the second-longest serving president in the history of the Guernsey Football Association, two former island managers in Harold Allen and Alan Le Prevost, and a man who bleeds blue-and-white, former Belgraves president Keith Parkyn.

And with prompting by yours truly, together with detailed statistical research made available in handwritten volumes by former football historian Richard Payne, we aim to give local football fans a nostalgic thrill of all time.

While the panel aims to come up with definitive best XIs of Rangers, North, Vale Rec, Bels, St Martin's, Sylvans, Rovers, Centrals and Athletics, the nine most successful non-Army local clubs in the long history of the GFA, we also want readers to come forward with their own opinions on who were the great club players across the generations. We aim to publish as many of those individual choices as we can and the selection floor is open to all, young or old.

Regardless of club allegiance you are invited to have a say on all the best club XIs, not just your own favourite one. It will be intriguing to see how your own teams match up to the verdict of the panel.

Put your suggestions in the comments box, below.