By Neto Baptiste
The former US Air Force base located in St George, is the ideal location for a sports village.,
This is the opinion of Cordell Williams, a former national tennis player and president of the Antigua and Barbuda Tennis Association (ABTA), Cordell Williams.
“They have the rooms there, they have a kitchen there, they have a conference room there and there is enough space, so I think up there is suited for a sporting village. There are rooms so you could bring teams and the money will come in to help maintaining what is there, and that is just my thinking,” he said.
Williams currently hosts tennis sessions at the base after having to vacate courts at the Halcyon Hotel, and he believes that if refurbished, the facility could be an asset to both the country’s sporting product and the tennis association.
He believes the location with all its amenities could be an ideal project for a major sporting body here.
“Maybe the NOC could move a part of their headquarters there but again, you have to sit down, negotiate and talk because at one time there was supposed to have been a sporting village at the old Nurses Hostel when the UPP [was in power], so in talks going forward it would ideally form something like the NOC because they would be able to tap into funding to help maintain it and up there already has rooms,” he said.
The tennis boss said that although from time to time they are allowed to utilise some hotel courts, there are no guarantees the courts would be available when most needed.
“Over the years we have had access to all these courts in Antigua, where we’ve had access to St James, Royal Antigua, Carlisle Bay and the last place we had access to was Halcyon, and what happened? It’s gone, so we can’t continue to use hotel courts because as the hotels say they are moving up to five stars they don’t want those programmes anymore, so let’s move away from the hotels and let’s put something down for ourselves,” Williams said.
There are three tennis courts at the former base with two currently in use. The facility is owned by the Antigua and Barbuda Social Security Scheme.
