Meakin: 'Why not use Footes Lane?'

Before last night’s game at The Track, Saints had not played a league game since 28 November and had fallen significantly behind title rivals Rovers and Sylvans, who have been putting points in the bag.

‘It is added pressure,’ said Meakin.

‘We are we not using Footes Lane as well as KGV?’ he added.

‘I know it’s expensive but why can’t we hire it for the whole day? It’s a ground that is publicly funded.’

Phil Corbet, chair of the GFLM, understands Meakin’s concerns and confirmed that talks with Education, Sport & Culture about utilising a pitch which is largely vacant since Covid ended both Guernsey FC and Raiders’ projected league seasons.

‘Footes Lane is just too expensive,’ said Corbet, who added that Meakin’s comments as a coach are not the same as those of club representatives.

‘Every club has requested to us that they play home games at their home venues and that is why KGV [available at approximately a third of the price of Footes Lane] only began to be used recently.’

GFLM fixture coordinator Matt Lihou said the body had explored the possibility of Footes Lane and that it ‘is cost prohibitive’.

Lihou said that the GFLM had been quoted about £440 per game and that St Martin’s, the club, know that.

‘The money is just not there,’ Lihou added.

Meakin, whose side began the weekend four games behind Rovers and three of Sylvans, said his team had taken to using Delancey Park last weekend for training with Blanche Pierre Lane still out of use.

‘It has been a frustrating two months and in that period as far as suspended players like Cal Le Lacheur and Ben Coulter it has also turned into an eight-nine week ban.

‘It hasn’t helped those players and you want to be playing games.’

On a wider fixture issue Meakin said perhaps it is time for football to revert to using public pitches such as Delancey and Cambridge Park which seem far more resilient in these prolonged wet spells which seem to occur every winter now.

Lihou said that GFLM had already had that in mind and he was due to meet Beau Sejour [Education Sport and Culture] and enquire about future use of Delancey and Beau Sejour, while they would consult the St Peter Port Parish about the use of Cambridge Park.

. A let up in the weather has almost certainly allowed today’s scheduled FNB Priaulx League game between Vale Rec and Northerners at the Corbet Field to go ahead with a 2pm kick off.

The pitch has been prepared and had its first cut for more than a month.