Guyana’s lone Inter-national Stadium located at Providence, is expected to be officially renamed by May according to Director of Sports Christopher Jones who confirmed the move yesterday during talks with local media operatives at the National Sports Commission’s Home-stretch Avenue location.
According to Jones, he is in favor of the stadium being named after any of Guyana’s famous sportsmen/ women, adding that the three stands, which are currently designated by colors; Green, Red and Orange will also be given names after local sportsmen.
Last August, on the topic of a name change for the stadium which has been on the cards awhile now, Minister Nicolette Henry of the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sport was seemingly reluctant to jump on the idea because according to her, she did not want to risk spending the next five years defending the name changes.
Henry had said she also believes that such a move will create some amount of controversy as to who is worthy of having their name/s etched into the Stadium’s history but a more open-minded Jones seemed to be more keen on the idea of having Guyana’s premier sporting venue and it’s stands named after any of the country’s top athletes.
“I’m fully open and fully in support of the Providence Stadium being named after one of our icons and of course some the stands as well,”
Jones said adding that a panel is currently tasked with identifying these icons and the goal should be completed before Guyana’s 50th independence anniversary in May 2016.
“We have a panel established to identify those icons and of course after the panel deliberate and whatever submission they make, we are hoping that we can see the renaming of the Providence Stadium and some of the stands during our 50th anniversary in the month of May”. He said.
Built by the Indian firm Shapoorji Paloonji ahead of the 2007 Cricket World Cup hosted by the West Indies, Providence has a seating capacity of 16,000 and is mainly used to host local, regional or international cricket or occasionally football matches.
Having said that, it’s very likely that Providence will be renamed after any of the Guyana and West Indies cricket icons such as; Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Lance Gibbs, Clive Lloyd, Colin Croft, Rohan Kanhai and Alvin Kallicharran, to name a few.
