I WILL miss our former Education, Sport and Culture Minister, Mike Vibert who, over the years, has been a staunch supporter of sport in Jersey.

On a personal basis I also appreciate his honesty. For at times, and occasionally off the record, he has explained to me the decisions that either the States or his Department have made that I and many of the rest of us tax-payers might not have liked but which were thought best at the time of asking.

Mike is an honest man. And, as he leaves the States, he has also left in the hands of Phil Austin a fitting legacy. For Phil has been asked to put together an Island-wide bid for the 2015 Island Games to come to Jersey.

At a time of economic recession which affects the whole of the UK, including Jersey, it is a brave man who’ll take up that challenge. For the Jersey Island Games, 2015, won’t be the same as those of 1997 when we last staged them.

Sponsorship could be harder to find. Travelling to and from the Island could prove more difficult or more expensive. There are fewer hotels but probably more participating islands than in 1997, and Jersey’s bid won’t be the only one.

However, I really do hope that our 2015 bid is successful. Our sporting facilities are second to none. We are also a friendly island, with no legacy of terrorism or of aggressive political in-fighting. Hopefully, in some way yet to be determined, we will, by then, have been involved in the London Olympics of 2012.

So thanks for all of your hard work over the years Mike; and now over to you, Phil Austin. Are you the man who’ll bring us the Island Games in seven years time?

‘For 90 minutes I forget that I’m blind’At the end of last Sunday’s Match of the Day a BBC journalist went behind the scenes at Arsenal to interview one of over 50 blind supporters who hold a season ticket for the Gunners’ home games.

The reporter, not unnaturally, asked the interviewee what possible reward he could get by sitting in the stands when he couldn’t see the referee, the pitch, the players and the goals. ‘Because, for 90 minutes, I forget I’m blind,’ we were told.

It was said simply, without regret or anger and the interview itself was laced with good-humour. I have no idea how many other clubs spend time in ensuring that their blind supporters can ‘watch’ a game, but we were told that Arsenal have their own match commentator (a Gunners’ fan of course!) while their guide dogs are also catered for, with a separate ‘Guide Dog Toilet’ adjacent to the men’s.

And although I’ll never change my allegiance from the Rams to the Gunners, I do admire the way that Arsenal have set new standards not only in playing the game, courtesy of Arsene Wenger (one of the most visionary managers in the world), but also in thinking about the needs of the most important asset any club has; its fan base.

And, at the end of the interview, I loved the comment made by the blind fan who’d been listening to Wenger’s post-match commentary, following their 1-0 win against Wigan. ‘Arsene said that the game had been so frustrating he couldn’t find words to describe it,’ he said. ‘Fat lot of good that was to me. If I can’t see it and he can’t describe it – what kind of a football match is that?’

Dedication’s what you need
When is an Englishman not an Englishman? During the last two weeks I have had two letters, both from former Yorkshire folk, complaining that too many of our England teams have been hi-jacked by foreigners.
In particular they complained that Kevin Pietersen is a South African who has no right to lead our national cricket side.

One of the correspondents was particularly scathing, scorning Pietersen for being little more than a sporting mercenary and I must admit that although I do hold some sympathy with his opinion, I’m not entirely convinced by it.

Yes, Pietersen’s accent gives the game away that he is, indeed, South-African. But is it his birthplace which we hold against him, or his delight in stepping into the media spotlight?

For Pietersen has, in the past, courted publicity and has enjoyed being centre-stage which has also helped him to earn a great deal of money. From here-on in I’ll nail my flag firmly to the mast to confess that I’m not terribly interested in Pietersen’s birthplace, or whether he’ll be a millionaire by the time he’s 30. Instead I’d prefer to focus on how good a captain he is, or might become.

At the time of writing, England are playing a Test match in India which, a week ago, the bookies would have laid their odds against ever happening. Events in Mumbai have overshadowed Test Match cricket. Yet as Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket said earlier this week: ‘Every now and then an opportunity arises which transcends cricket and goes beyond the boundary.

‘Our players have made a brave and courageous decision that will be respected all around the world. This has been a very emotional and sensitive time and it has been very difficult for the players. They have all decided to go back and we are now looking forward to the challenge.’

Between now and 23 December both in Chennal and Mohali I expect England to lose their two Tests against India. Results, however, are scarcely the issue, and I appreciate Morris’s words when he says: ‘an opportunity arises . . . which goes beyond the boundary’.

For someone who has loved the limelight Pietersen has been remarkably quiet these last few weeks. And I applaud him for that. For I suspect that while giving every England player the option to tour or not to tour, quietly in the background he has told them that while he doesn’t really want to go back to India, as England team captain he feels it his duty to lead them there.

That one four-letter word, ‘duty’ is an important one for England, and Pietersen, for the rest of the team could have opted out of the tour if they’d wanted to. Instead, collectively, they decided to stick together. Meanwhile, in terms of nationality?

Well, even that most ‘English’ of English gentlemen, singer Cliff Richard (Harry Webb) was born in India and if you were to ask me to give a definitive definition as to what an ‘Englishman’ is . . . blessed if I know, although it’s easier on the sports pages to write about Chalkie White rather than our JRFC captain Talite Vaioleti.

As for this problem of nationality? It has been with us for generations; but I’ll end this commentary with a brief history of a personal favourite, Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky, born in Saint Petersburg on 17 February, 1916, whose family fled Russia in 1917 and who settled in Muswell Hill before young Alex went first to public school in Derbyshire and then to Oxford where he played on the wing in the annual Cambridge-Oxford Varsity match.

After that he signed for Leicester and then on 4 January 1936, he scored two tries for England in a 13-0 win over the previously unconquered New Zealand All-Blacks. At the time his selection caused a stir in the press because he hadn’t been born in England.

Yet although he might not have been a regular Englishman, in 1939 he joined the RAF and died for his adopted country in March 1940, when he broke his neck in an air crash at Martlesham Heath in Suffolk.
So, personally, I don’t think that you can be more ‘British’ than to die for your country, no matter what colour or creed you are, no matter your accent or religion, no matter the country or city that you were born.

Junior players serving up high standards on the football field
It isn’t often that I watch a top of the table Coca-Cola Combination under-14 football match but on Sunday afternoon at St Saviour’s I saw the visitors, St Peter’s, beat St Paul’s 2-1. And rather than offer any opinion of my own, I’ll reproduce the following two sets of quotes from my reporter’s notepad.

3.25 pm: linesman: ‘If you didn’t know that they were 13 and 14 year old boys, you would think that they were much older than they are. The way they’ve been playing football has been brilliant.’ And this, after the game from referee Barry Breuilly: ‘The game was so different compared to some of the rubbish I have to put up with from the seniors on a Saturday afternoon. It must have been a pleasure to watch.

‘I really enjoyed it.’