The Guyana Olympic Association kindly invited me to speak at their recent Annual Awards ceremony. This is the main part of what I had to say.
I am impressed with the advances Guyana has been making. I see success in many areas – squash, rugby, our Twenty/20 cricket side in 2010 though they did not repeat in 2011, body-building and power-lifting, football, athletics, rifle-shooting, tennis, table tennis, taekwondo, swimming, cycling – and in other sports which I am sure I have missed mentioning. And it is noteworthy that often it is the women who are doing their sport and Guyana proud. There has been a significant increase in activity and success when you add it all up.
And it is not only on the fields of contest that progress is being made. At a very basic and essential level – the provision of infrastructure and facilities – there is also progress: a new Olympic style swimming pool, a new athletics track, a new racquets centre, good use of the new stadium. If these and other such facilities are well maintained and efficiently and regularly used our future in sports will be bright. The Minister of Sport and his team and the associations responsible are to be greatly congratulated. I sense a vibrancy in the sporting air which I have not sensed for a long time.
There is one exception to this generally promising outlook. What has been happening in the administration of cricket is a serious embarrassment to say the least. It is absolutely mortifying to all lovers of this great game. The players and cricket itself are the huge losers while this destructive in-fighting goes on. Cannot the Olympic Association assume the role of custodian of sport in Guyana, which surely would be fitting, and intervene to help broker peace and cooperation and effect a renewal of good order and accountability on all sides? In the meanwhile could I remind all concerned of the words of Lord Harris, one of the game’s early administrators:
“You do well to love this cricket, for it is more free from anything sordid, anything dishonourable than any game in the world. To play it keenly, honourably, generously, self- sacrificingly is a moral lesson in itself, and the classroom is God’s air and sunshine. Foster it, my brothers, so that it may attract all who can find the time to play it, protect it from anything that would sully it, so that it may grow in favour with all men.”
I now seize the opportunity of being given an audience to set out one or two developments which I would like to see and which I think would be valuable as we continue to make progress. They are not very original but they get down to the bedrock.
● All our sports organizations must make a resolution to strengthen and streamline the efficiency of their administration. Sporting success comes not only on courts and fields of play and arenas but very fundamentally in the daily attention to the details of financing and organizing by the officials in charge. They are not there for the power and perquisites and glory, they are there to facilitate the participation and superior performance of the sportsmen and athletes. Very specifically this includes at least three things the associations must attend to without fail:
– pay constant attention to fund-raising and proper and meticulous accounting for money raised and spent.
– the prompt preparation of audited financial statements annually for public consumption.
– the presentation of detailed annual reports on what has been done and future plans – including a time-table of events – again for public consumption.
● I again make a plea for every sports association to research and publish a history of its sport in Guyana. Even if there are gaps and records seem sparse, please make the effort: see what records there are, visit old newspapers and magazines in the archives, which are now better organized, interview old stalwarts. Even quite short and incomplete histories will be immensely valuable and can be added to as time goes on. When we compete we should compete with a sense of the history and traditions of our sport.
● As part of recording our histories, all associations should have halls of fame so that sportsmen and sportswomen who have performed notably in their day can be recorded. They should not be allowed to vanish into the thin air of the quickly passing years.
● As far as I know no living person has been a member of the Georgetown Cricket Club longer than myself – 55 years. As that great club’s oldest member, can I make a special plea that Bourda not be forgotten as one of the great cricket grounds of the world. The new stadium has been a success and that is to be applauded – but please let Bourda be preserved not only in our memories, but also as a place where cricket will always be played. The GCC, which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2008 – without much fanfare I regret to say – is by far the oldest cricket club in the West Indies and one of the oldest cricket clubs in the world. It is a national treasure. It should continue to be given the honour of hosting important cricket occasions.
● I want to put forward one other thought. Guyana has an abundance of sporting talent among its young people, more often than not from struggling families. And all sports worldwide are rapidly expanding their reach and popularity and their search for the best. We must seek to connect these two facts. One way to do this is very actively to seek out sporting scholarships for our promising youths in centres of international sport, particularly America. It is true that these young men and women may be lost for a while from the local scene but not forever. They will return to represent us and assist us. There are thousands of scholarships out there – young Guyanese must get their share.
Before I stop, let me most sincerely congratulate the sporting heroes being celebrated tonight. I remember with abundant pleasure when I received one of these honours a few years ago. I sincerely commend the Olympic Association for establishing and maintaining this tradition. To me it gives evidence of a thoughtful and imaginative organization concerned not only with the development of sport in Guyana but also concerned to recognize the long contribution of sport and sportsmen and sportswomen to the nation through the years.
