By Neto Baptiste
Sport in Bolans and surrounding communities remain at a disadvantage due to the continued delay by government to remedy the issue created by the excavation of the northern end of the playing field intended to house a pavilion.
This is according to Member of Parliament for the area and United Progressive Party (UPP) candidate, Kelvin “Shugy” Simon, who said that since heavy machinery first dug up the area ahead of by-elections back in 2023, there has been very little progress which has rendered the field unusable for official matches in both the domestic football and cricket competitions.
“In fact, the work has been stalled again. I haven’t seen anybody operating over there since late last year, maybe the last two months or so and there’s no cricket that can play there, absolutely none. The field is much shorter than what it used to be and it was already small for cricket. Then, what’s happening in the back there with the construction, it would have taken up a good section of the field again so there is no cricket, no football that can play right now again for the third or fourth season,” he said.
Excavation in the area has also created the issue of water flooding the usable areas of the field. Currently, both the SAP and Bolans football teams are forced to play home matches at venues outside the community while the Bolans Blasters cricket team will face a similar situation when the season bowls off later this month with the two-day competition.
“It takes away the support that the teams get because it’s much easier for a person to take a five-minute walk to the field — in some cases some people live right next to the field — than for them to jump in a bus or beg a ride or to start their cars to go all the way to the turf. The clubs themselves suffer tremendously from the lack of support because of this nonsense that’s going on,” the MP said.
Meanwhile, President of the Jennings Cricket Club Glen Miller said the situation has affected his preparations for the domestic cricket season as his field is being utilized by at least one football team from Bolans as their home venue.
“I can’t get to prepare my cricket team the way I want to prepare my cricket team because even though I have two teams in the premier league, every time I prepare the pitch, some kind of game is up there. Bolans play up there, this team play up there so they are choking me, they hinder my work. I am begging, I call on whoever can help me. I need some help because I’m supposed to be done in a full practice mode and we can’t get into full practice mode. So I am calling upon the football association to let them know that the balance of the games scheduled for Jennings to carry them up at the turf,” he said.
Although teams are able to train at the facility, it is not suitable for cricket or football matches. Work started at the grounds just prior the by-election in 2023 as the ruling Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party sought to ramp up its campaign in support of candidate Dwayne George.
Simon won the by-election by a margin of 74 votes after getting 1,065 votes while George received 891.
