Saving Delancey for football a must

ONCE upon a time North cherished it, leagues and a school depended upon it.

Ross Allen, wearing his familiar 10 shirt, strikes at Delancey. Yes, it’s true. It’s January 2010 and pre-GFC days the Rangers striker looks to beat the four-man Sylvans wall – which is just what he did, with a curling beauty into the top right-hand corner. The game had been switched to the park with all the other island grounds out of action that wet weekend. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 19637311)

But the posts have come down at Delancey Park, Beau Sejour and Cambridge Park and island football may come to regret it.

There has certainly been a sea change in island football this past few years, and one of the by-products has been first the diminishing and now the disappearance, of park social league football.

To some extent that’s a shame, but not half the shame as the loss of a ground that has served the island footy scene so well for as long as there has been football here.

This is not an old fuddy-duddy getting teary-eyed about the loss of a few patches of grass, but someone who regards it as needless and a waste which, come the wettest weeks of the winter – and in years to come – will come to bite the game in the behind.

The domestic game is currently in full swing, fairly rattling along and because of the fixture regularity is maximising interest in terms of players and spectators.

But we all know it won’t last and, once the inevitable rains come, the fixtures will grind to a halt, momentum will be broken and a backlog of fixtures will, once again, threaten to take the game into May.

It need not happen though and it is somewhat irresponsible of football to allow the potential loss of fine park grounds, that in Delancey’s case are very seldom unplayable, when you know darn well there will be a need for it – not least as an emergency venue for minis training.

Delancey, for one, should be kept on the fixture roster, not on sentimental grounds but because once it is gone we might never get it back.

Who’ll pay?

The GFA and the clubs through the Guernsey Football League Management should, while at the same time ensuring there is regular use for it.

n THE pathway from minis football through to senior ranks is littered with instances of clubs spending years of nurturing all for nothing, as 17/18-year-olds jump ship to play with their mates.

But occasionally it works the other way and the club lets down badly the really talented loyal youngster, which I’m saddened to say is happening this season. Perhaps, that club should take a close look at its woefully failing senior operation.