Victoria Park will host a complete round of fixtures in the competition, beginning with Rovers v Vale Rec on 21 November and ending with Bels v North on 6 March – 21 games in total. Each team will also play home and away at their own grounds.
Guernsey Football League Management said 32 of last season’s 63 Priaulx matches ended up being played on a different date or at a different ground to originally scheduled, with some clashes postponed multiple times.
Ahead of the season kicking off this weekend, its chairman Andy Robert said the move would do more than just make the life of the fixture secretary that bit easier.
‘It achieves two things. One, it keeps the players playing, which is very important. You won’t have a glut of fixtures when you have to play four games in 10 days at the end of season.
‘But hopefully we can create a little bit of interest and add a bit more oomph to the local game too.
‘I’d love to see as many people come down to support the local game as possible and with those middle fixtures at Victoria Park, we will try to make a weekend of Priaulx games in one venue,’ he said.
The fixture list for the new Priaulx season contains two Saturday double-headers, with games at 1pm and 5pm on Saturday 28 November and 9 January. Both days when Guernsey FC’s men will be playing away.
Victoria Park, which opened its artificial surface for football in spring 2025, will also host the Stranger Cup competition across January and February, as it did last season, featuring the seven Priaulx clubs and Guernsey’s under-18s.
Rob Thomson, who is part of the backroom team at Vale Rec, said the move was not unanimously supported by clubs, but described it as a ‘no-brainer’ from their perspective.
‘Especially with how our season ended last year, with the backlog of games putting us in that situation where we had four in seven days,’ he said.
‘It’s obviously an incredible facility, and for the guys to know that during that period that the game’s going to be on at the stated time, there’s going to be no getting a squad together and then the game’s called off and all the drama that comes with that.
‘We’ve got a round of home games, a round of aways, and then the round of neutrals, so it’s fair on everybody, it’s all equal, and we’re looking forward to it – we’re going to embrace it’.
Local clubs, meanwhile, are also set to benefit from significant support from Aztech Soccer this season. The football centre has provided 20 brand new match balls to each of the seven Priaulx clubs, as well as Alderney.
‘It’s very welcome support,’ said Robert.
‘That’s several hundred pounds that the clubs don’t have to pay or have contributed towards their running costs. I just hope they keep the balls and don’t lose them.’
The new Priaulx League season kicks off with a triple-header of fixtures tomorrow afternoon.
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