Planning delay threatens FA funding

Give a few days, 70 years ago Guernsey statesman were taken to task by this paper for failing to address the issue of traffic congestion in Victoria Avenue where, twice a week, throughout the football season, car-loving fans would inch their way out onto the seafront post-games.

That, of course, was when Guernsey football had ‘crowds’.

A cool 12,000-plus watched the 1949 final at The Track, a number bettered to 12,692 two years later.

Last Saturday, admittedly very wet, very miserable and the penultimate one before Christmas, a resurgent Green Lions were watched by a shade under 400 at Footes Lane.

Crowd and traffic control was clearly a problem back in those early post-Occupation days, but it is not now.

So why this interminably frustrating delay in handing the Guernsey FA and Guernsey FA the green light to develop a new stadium next to The Track?

The detailed plans have been with the Development and Planning Authority since March and Inside Track has learned that if permissions are not given in the next few weeks the January window to utilise the seven-figure financial boost from the Football Association in England will be shut.

Whether that window of lovely, much-needed money to fund the project reopens any time soon is open to doubt, say deeply frustrated sources.

For point of record, the 1949 commentator suggested that the way to dispense with traffic issues back then was to make Victoria Avenue, or Track Lane, whichever you prefer, a one-way street with exit only via the ‘Rabbit Warren Lane’ that leads out towards Pitronnerie.

The appeals for reason clearly fell on deaf ears, because the rabbits have remained in relative peace ever since.

. FOOTBALL beats any other sport when it comes to driving opinion.

Eighteen months ago my thought was that Guernsey FC was on its knees, as the original team had understandably run out of steam and the replacements were not up to it. Well, I was wrong.

As GFC crowds continue to ebb away, the tide has turned out on the field and ‘the new team’ are playing some super stuff, matching it with the very best in front of Garenne Stand crowds.

Although the results don’t always come, there is life after Ross, Dom and ‘Cockers’.

Some of the recent performances have been wonderful to watch and while the cutting edge is not there, nobody can complain about the style. I’m loving it.

It remains to be seen how much the potential imminent departure of Charlton Gauvain to Bristol City will halt the upturn, but the coaching group have worked minor wonders and they should be applauded for that.

. COMPARED to football, forging an opinion on rugby is so difficult.

Unless you have played it to a high level and/or grown up within the game, how are we expected to see the underlying qualities of a good loose-head prop or a blindside flanker from 80 metres away?

You can, though, clearly see when a rugby team is stripped on confidence and Raiders’ spirits are understandably low as they queue up for bandaging.

Whether the gloom disperses any time soon it is hard to say, but at least the Guernsey Rugby Club, who have worked so, so hard to find new and extra funding to operate at National Two South level, can take succour from the remarkably consistent and big crowds drawn to home games.

If those crowds were dipping it would be a big worry for GRFC, but I don’t see them seeking a £150,000 grant from their local government any time soon.