Skip to main content

Guernsey's formula for island football

As the mainland football correspondent for Radio Scilly (where the local league has just two teams) I am always interested in news of island football.

The Non-League Paper this week featured that unusual island football team, Guernsey. The Green Lions were formed in 2011. They began life in the Combined Counties League and won back to back promotions to the Isthmian League where they seem to have found their level at Step 4 of the non-league system. The catalyst for starting a new club came when the island team won the FA National League Systems Cup in 2010 and got the chance to represent England in the Uefa Regions Cup.

Initially, a lot of local clubs were unhappy that their best players had left to play for the island team. (There are nine teams in the Priaulx League). The team has to travel by plane for away matches which usually involves an overnight stay. Four players work for a scaffolding company and only two can be taken on each away trip.

There is one player who is not local and he flies over from Bournemouth for each game with a local airline company footing the bill. The club has to pay for opponents to fly over and I would guess that it is the number of wealthy residents who like football that makes this possible.

The club is chaired by Mark Le Tissier, older brother of Matt who played for Southampton and England (he played some matches for Guernsey towards the end of their 2013 promotion winning season). They hope to build a brand new stadium and a development centre for the successful academy.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hull City's 'strange' loan

When football finance guru Kieran Maguire seems flashing lights in a club's loan deal, I become concerned.  He is the leading football finance expert in the UK. Hull City have borrowed £55m against their stadium and training ground yet they should get £30m from the Premier League before long.  What is going on? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cpwel48y51do
Post a Comment
Read more