Inflatable football pitch in fight against crime
Tuesday 28th July 2009, 2:56PM BST.
The inflatable football pitch
JERSEY’S community sports team is giving Islanders the chance to tackle anti-social behaviour this summer – with an inflatable football pitch.
The team is inviting residents to nominate areas that have been plagued by troublesome youths.
If they believe the problem is serious, the team will then set up the pitch and invite the youngsters to take part in a game of football.
The inflatable football sessions will form part of a programme of free summer sports classes being sponsored by Crimestoppers and G4S Security.
Phone the community sports team on 449787 to nominate an area for the inflatable football pitch sessions.
• See Tuesday’s JEP for full story.
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Nice idea in principal, and I’m hopeful that it will show the little troublemakers that there is more to life than drinking, vandalism and assaults.
However, once again we are rewarding bad behaviour. Realistically we should be getting inflatable football pitches et al for youths that do not cause trouble – whilst their delinquent counterparts should be getting punished for their crimes and seeing what fun they are missing out on.
It seems that crime does pay, after all.
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Good idea, Lets reward all the anti-social brats so they will think their behaviour will lead them to rewards like this. Meanwhile, the good children are yet again ignored.
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Peronally i think two years national service would be a better option.
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Inflatable football pitch to fight crime..? hello…another example of Jersey La La Land thinking…………….BOOTCAMP is what is actually needed…but dream on.
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Not all troublesome youths want to play football.
They are probably more interested in scoring more elusive goals such as their first sexual experience – one reason why they are often troublesome at that stage of their development!
I became a troublesome youth after being forced onto the football field by a system that assumed that all boys were sports mad.
Some of us kept well away from the ball during the match and they never did find a way of making us kick it!
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Having had a good look at the heading picture of the inflatable pitch I would say that a couple of possibilities present themselves to troublesome youths:
Puncture it.
Steal the pump.
Or, better still, have a good laugh at the bouncy castle concept and, if they are that keen on football, make do with a pair of coats at each end.
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Pandering to the anti-social again!
When will the powers that be ever recognise that these pc actions are actually encouraging bad behaviour. This is a reward not a punishment.
Where is the deterrent and what facilities are being offered to the better behaved youths??
This island has it’s head up it’s own backside sometimes !
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Yeah I agree a couple of years in the military is the thing to do. In the States they have boots camps. Wouldn’t that be a good idea in the island, instead of rewarding them.
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What a bizarre concept. Surely it would be more in keeping with the local youth scene to have inflatable foreigners dotted around town that they could verbally and physically abuse instead.
Also, what ever happened to playing football using jumpers for goalposts? Do youths really need to be provided with an inflatable pitch (probably at considerable cost) in order to play? One of the few good things left about football is the fact that you can pretty much play it anywhere you have a bit of open space.
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Precisely Bob.
If they were that interested in playing football in the first place then there is absolutely nothing stopping them from playing instead of causing trouble.
There are far more football teams and competitions which go on throughout the summer now than when I was a kid.
“Having nothing to do” is simply a boring excuse for youths of today……they now know some pc idiot will absolve them of any wrongdoing they commit and will even be rewarded!
What about the good kids? Where is their incentive?
Disgraceful!
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