Bels can bounce back quickly but need to re-brand
WITH three Upton Park appearances in the past six years the stats suggest that Bels, the club formed in the Red Lion pub in 1897, have never had it so good.
WITH three Upton Park appearances in the past six years the stats suggest that Bels, the club formed in the Red Lion pub in 1897, have never had it so good.
How misleading can stats be?
Nine months after landing the Priaulx League title, the old Track club is in a state of crisis.
Ian Champion, who resigned again this week, departed with worrying words for all followers of Belgrave Wanderers: 'I haven't got enough to get us out of the mire we are in, which gets deeper and deeper every week.'
But this sorry tail-off in fortunes is more than about Champion.
Much, much more.
Even when they were winning, seasoned observers were seeing worrying signs of frailty within the club which Hilary Sarre, bless him, has lived and breathed as its
chairman and driving force.
Many a Belgrave blame this column for over-playing its current downturn, but in my defence it was not me – a relatively recent Belgrave veteran player who, honestly, has a lot of time for the people who run the club – that oversaw a youth development programme which is the worst in the island.
But, as Colin Fallaize often reminds me, and did so before Guernsey
Athletics, a club I was very much involved with, went bottoms up, it is not easy running a successful football club and it is not simple to keep one going either.
You might have great ideas and a vision for a healthy future, but finding suitable personnel is not so easy.
Hardly a season goes by when it is not obvious that one of our senior clubs is in need of a serious shake up. Last season it was North, the year before Rec and Rovers, and in recent years Sylvans and Rangers have gone through the mill too.
Bels, if it is any consolation, your problems are not unique to our football.
The sudden slide of the club's first team is what has made all the headlines, but that is only a small part of Bels' troubles. It is, surely, in the minis and youth section that the big problems lie.
The first team may recover very quickly. Footballers are fickle characters and who is to say, with the right coaching appointment, good players might flood back to the Track.
Remedying the club's youth system will be the big challenge.
To do that, Bels needs to re-brand its image.
The men who sat down in the Red Lion 114 years ago and chewed over what they wanted their club to represent, made decisions for that era, not the 21st century.
Back then Bels was a club for the town lads and with it many poor neighbourhoods.
Since then it has been inextricably linked to the St Peter Port housing estates and, naturally, schools such as Vauvert, St Joseph's and St Peter Port secondaries.
All three have now gone as secondary establishments and, I have heard it suggested from within the Bels camp, that the introduction of St Sampson's High has led to Bels losing out to North and Vale Rec in the chase for talent.
I do not particularly buy that argument, nor do I believe that Bels should be continuing to sell themselves as a club to merely service the town boys, which is an ethos that was suitable 40 years ago and the early part of the 20th
century when far fewer families had cars and there were many more poorer families.
The Bels' minis and junior programme has not been very good for some years now and it comes to something when diehard Belgraves push their grandchildren to other clubs rather than send them down to Victoria Avenue on a Saturday morning, which I have heard happening more than once.
But, of course, all this can be remedied with a lot of hard work and bringing in the right people with the right level of support from the club to change the image of this great club at a time when the chase for young talent has never been fiercer.
Put the right framework together, led by coaches with top values and respect, then the youngsters will come in from all over the island.
Modern parents are alert and, in the main, will take the time to discover where best their boy or girl will progress on the football field and what each club can offer.
So if Bels get that right, the outlook at junior level will improve, just as it has at St Martin's these past couple of years.
Bels need to come away from projecting themselves simply as the town club while, of course, not turning their back on the boys and girls who come from the various St Peter Port housing estates.
They need to positively re-brand, aim island wide, and the only way they can do that is by putting in place an infrastructure that mirrors the likes of North, Vale Rec, St Martin's, Rovers, Rangers and Sylvans.
Hilary Sarre has already tried once – a couple of years back – to bring in a club development officer – but that came to nothing.
Perhaps he needs to try again.
As for Champion, it was no surprise to hear he had again quit and indeed he was right to say that he should have never returned to the first-team coach.
But, typical 'Champy', he meant well and is undeserving of some of the criticism you will find on the 'Your Shout' web slot.
He meant well and obviously thought he could make a difference when, last spring, he decided to openly criticise his star players and, as you would expect, found that they did not take kindly to the whip.
'Champy', a good guy, is simply too emotional a man to be a long-lasting football coach. That is primarily why he has never stayed in one place very long.
The Sam Cochranes of this world wanted him to replace Micky Ogier when 'Budlo' opted to step aside after his successful reign.
Why, we should ask?
Possibly it was because they perceived they could influence Champion far more, simply because of the type of person he is.
But when Champion, upset about the senior squad's attitude to fund-raising, launched a verbal broadside at his elite players at the club's
annual presentation dinner, it might have made him feel better but at the same time ruined his relationship with some, including Cochrane.
Unsurprisingly, the unsettled Muratti captain, whacked in a transfer request when the domestic league programme had barely started.
That was before Champion answered the chairman's SOS and returned to replace Leighton Chainey, another thoroughly decent man and Belgrave through and through, but also unsuited to the job of front man and leader.
It is understood Bels' committee meet Monday to discuss who replaces Champion in the short and longer term, and their decisions are vital ones.
It may just be pub talk that as many as five first-team players will be off to Vale Rec in the summer.
However, the way things have been going recently at this stage you can see that possibly happening.
What I see is a club in serious danger of plummeting to the position occupied by Rovers for much of the past decade.
Rovers finally acted and are on the up – why they even beat the champions last Saturday – and now it is the time for Bels to adopt some serious introspection, make sound policy decisions and change their ways.
It won't be easy to change Bels' image, I know that, but it needs to be done, otherwise they will be heading for a prolonged spell of disappointment and perhaps the troubles of 2010-11 will seem nothing in comparison.
KEY to Rovers' first league victory last weekend were the performances of Richard Powell and Joe Clatworthy.
The UK duo are still relative
newcomers and the latter has only just returned to action after knee problems, but I have seen enough already to be impressed by their skill levels worthy of a good look some time by Tony Vance.
If the pair have a weakness it is in their levels of fitness.
The versatile Powell, tall, good in the air and with a delicate touch, has everything to challenge for an island squad spot, but needs to up his work rate.
Clatworthy, once a Sheffield United apprentice and like his UK colleague in his very early 20s, is a clever little midfielder with the ability to pick a perfect pass.
He was less than fully fit when he first appeared last season, but having shed a good deal of weight, he brings some welcome composure and class to the blues' midfield.
WITHOUT wanting to sound like Larry Grayson but... 'settle down now' you inter-island table tennis players.
Having watched a good deal of 'wiff-waff' these last few years when standards and competitor numbers have risen impressively, I have been both taken by the skills of the very best but, at the same time, been surprised and, now alarmed, at some of the on-table behaviour.
The Green Trophy and CI Top 12 competitions have been bringing the worst out of players from both islands and it is high time the sinners are punished for the long-term good of the game.
The sport knows who they are.
