By Neto Baptiste
Former president of the Empire Cricket Club and a member of the Gray’s Green community, Leon “Kuma” Rodney, is not in support of a move to rename the historic King George V Grounds in honour of a single individual and is calling on those behind the drive to rethink the decision.
“I would want to call on the committee to rethink the position of renaming the park in honour of any one individual, because there are just too many individuals in that community of Grays Green. Remember that Gray’s Farm and Gray’s Green all run into one and a lot of people would have made contributions,” he said.
His call comes on the heels of news that the popular venue has been renamed in honour of former Empire and national striker, Keithley “KS” Sheppard with an official unveiling ceremony planned for January 14 next year.
Although agreeing that Sheppard is one of the better footballers to have come out of the community, Rodney said that venue should carry the community’s name with plans to honour individuals within its walls. He added that an argument could even be made for others who would have made significant contributions in multiple areas.
“From a credential standpoint, if you were to even call an individual’s name, I think the name that should standout is a man by the name of Veron Edwards Sr. Veron would have played football for Empire, distinguished, and for Antigua where he was excellent also and then he would have gone on to play cricket for Antigua and Empire and Leeward Islands.
“I am not discrediting anything KS would have done because KS was definitely our best footballer. But after KS’ playing days I think he disappeared into St Thomas and never really did any coaching or anything like that. So Veron would have stood out but I would not support any one individual name,” he said.
The cricket association head also suggested that more dialogue and or consultation should have taken place within the community before a decision was reached.
“I think I am still a reasonable person in that regard with my connection to Empire cricket and nobody has ever asked me about it. I don’t know how much consultation was done, but it’s a community park and let’s agree that you have an executive that must do the work.
“They should also understand that it is not an association like the football association; it is a little more difficult that the executive have to make some decisions to run the operations. This is quite different because it’s a community and a community park where a number of persons from different eras would have made significant contributions,” Rodney said.
Earlier this month, Secretary for the KS Recreational Park committee, Micah Samuel, revealed that the body’s proposal to rename the park in the former player’s honour had been accepted by Cabinet.
