News

We all pay for this bungling

Flying high over the sports field of the once Hamlet of Hawkinge, there is no greater joy than seeing lots of youngsters giving a football and each other a load of welly in pursuit of the national game of football. Covered in mud with smiles a mile wide its a pure pleasure to behold.

Footballers in Hawkinge owe a huge debt to those who have worked hard over recent years to set up the game and facilities, none less so than to Cyril Trice.

He has battled to persuade the FA to come up with funds to help provide changing rooms and showers for players and game officials.

The tack used by the FA is to provide hurdles that applicants have to leap to show dedication to their purpose. Cyril, and others, have spent hundreds of hours doing just that, preparing documents, business plans and attending meetings including with the Council, before finally arriving at the joy for all concerned of hearing a large slice of the necessary funds should be coming our way. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper with the Queen’s head pictured on.

Cy’s project started when he was a Parish Councillor a few years back with, at the time, the support of the then Council. In his Seventies and a Marathon runner he set off determined to put Hawkinge on the Soccer map.

The FA (Football Association) have a pot of money to hand out to best facilities as they judge them. Many applications are made but few achieve what Hawkinge has. Their motive is the development of the game at grass roots by coaching at an early age as English born players at high level are becoming rare. Correct facilities are a requirement of that.

The joy as above seems to have come to an abrupt halt it appears from reading the Gazette. At the eleventh hour and fifty nine seconds of the project the Parish Council, it is said, withdrew their support for the scheme.

‘Who cares’ ? it could be said. We all should. It is probable the FA would HAVE to deal with an official body in order to proceed. They will need to account for such a huge amount of money being given. They have now been written to, it appears, saying we are out of it.

‘We don’t want to know’

Surely not I hear you say. So where is the logic? The Council must know what they are doing but some say they don’t seem to. Will they now squirm from the criticism thrown at them . Will they now publish a reason that led to such a strange course of action. Will they tell the youngsters and adults who celebrated the news that they shouldn’t have.

One of the hurdles that had to be jumped over was a schedule of grounds works which makes sense. A contractor as approved was appointed to do the necessary work. But, allegedly, the council changed the contractor at the eleventh hour.

Result: One contractor spiked and sanded the ground and the new one came in and rolled it negating the work of the first one. We all pay for this bungling.

The council called a special meeting recently (with minimal notice) to put their plans for football into place at which outsiders weren’t allowed to speak.

Perhaps they now will call another one and let the public do the talking and ask some pertinent questions.

Time will tell.

The Pigeon