Sion Hill Playing Field – a good place for synthetic Athletics track

Tue, May 22. 2012

Editor: The Hon. Prime Minister made a significant pronouncement a few years ago at the Victoria Park during his independence address that would change the face of sports in this land called St Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}} I say the Prime Minister, because there were other persons and technocrats who were fighting against this pronouncement, which was the decision to turn the Old Kingstown Anglican School Annex, formerly the Old Glove factory building in Kingstown, into an indoor facility.

I want to express my support for a sporting body of which I am critical about at times, but seriously needs developing – Athletics.

I am supporting the drive by the administrator in Athletics for acquiring the Sion Hill Playing Field to place a synthetic track for the development of our athletes and sports on whole for a number of reasons.

The Sion Hill Playing Field is at a location that we all can say is central, which would make the facility more accessible and less costly for poor people’s children to go and train from a transportation standpoint.

We have to be very careful about putting or constructing sporting facilities too far away from villages or communities, to avoid underuse e.g. the Bosoujoux Sporting facility in St Lucia. It is only when they have international or regional games that it is used. Here in SVG, there are some hard courts that have never been used for the same reasons.

Some might argue that Sion Hill Playing Field should be used for cricket, but should every playing field be used for that purpose? Where is the equity among sporting bodies from the governmental support?

We spent over sixty million dollars to develop the Arnos Vale Cricket Ground for cricket which I applauded, but we want to deny another sporting body the opportunity to develop itself in the best possible way as it relates to location. For instance, if I had said let’s take the sixty million and develop the London Playing Field in Sandy Bay, persons within the cricket cadre would have called me a Looney Toon, so please, let’s adhere to the request of the people who know about the track and field business.

The Australian cricket team came here; did they use the Sion Hill Playing field? So, why not Sion Hill for a synthetic track?

We in the sporting fraternity and in influential positions must not be so biased and selfish and must acknowledge that great ideas can come from persons who make up the 99%.

Track and field is the mother of all sports, so great emphasis must be placed on it.

I certainly hope that the Prime Minister will once again do the right thing by supporting this venture which also gives sports a different face in SVG.

Sean Stanley