By Neto Baptiste
The youths, and those within the Bolans community who love sport, are being “stifled” and robbed of the opportunity to support their teams due to the “unusable” state of the community playing field.
This is according to former national footballer and coach, Derrick “Pretty Boy” Edwards, who is renewing his call that urgent action be taken to rectify what he previously labelled a dire situation at the venue.
“The community can’t even come out and support the home teams, so they have to follow them anywhere they go, we have to go and borrow people’s places [venue] to go and play; that’s not right, and just like how they got in haste to put down the stand then get in haste to come fix-back the place so that we can play. I will reach out to him [Dwayne George] personally because they need to come and sort it out,” he said.
In November last year, Edwards called on the government to rectify the issue after work that was started on a proposed stand at the venue, was stopped following a by-election in the St Mary’s South Constituency.
The vote was captured by UPP candidate, Kelvin “Shugy” Simon, who defeated the ABLP’s candidate and a former member of his campaign team, Dwayne George, on October 24. The project that was largely seen as a political move by the ruling administration, has seemingly since been abandoned.
Edwards said that in its current state, neither football nor cricket can be played competitively at the venue unless the issues are rectified.
“How hard is it to bring a roller and roll out the humps so you get the field level and then we probably can get some sand and soil and fill up some of the areas but first, it needs to be rolled to get out some of the high humps. They don’t care about sports, and it’s amazing because you have two teams in the village practicing on one half of the field. No cricket can be played on that field in Bolans this year unless they fix the place,” he said.
The 2024 domestic cricket season is set to bowl-off on January 14 with the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association’s (ABCA) Two Day Championships, with the Bolans Tigers set to play all away matches due to the condition of the field.
