OVER 4000 spectators saw Jersey RFC beat Loughborough Students, 30-5, to win promotion to National League thus making our Island side one of the 40 best in all England.

28 May was a happy day for the team and the supporters who probably made more noise than they ever expected to hear at Jersey sports event. One of my friends didn’t even know there was a match on that day until, driving from the Airport to St Peter, she was overwhelmed by a cacophony of noise that climaxed as they drove past the Rugby Club.

At long last the Jersey crowd, so reticent on many a match day, have become vocal – and long may it last.

I don’t think Jersey’s ‘Barmy Army’ will be quite as prominent at away games for the 2011/2012 season, however.

‘After promotion comes all the hard work,’ explained JRFC president David Lapidus two days after the win.

‘Very shortly the committee are going to have to sit down and work out exactly what this means, in the form of travel, accommodation and costs next year. Our away games stretch virtually up to the Scottish border and then down to the southern wilds of Cornwall.

‘Instead of one night away (Friday) I can see us having to stay for two.’
Despite the euphoria of yet another promotion, David, the committee, and indeed the players and coaches, will be looking at next year’s fixture list with some trepidation.
For National League I will be a battle of logistics as well as games.

Here, for example, are just a few of them: Blaydon  (Tyneside), Macclesfield (Cheshire – to the north of the notorious A537), Wharfedale, ‘Running from North to south, Wharfedale is one of the Yorkshire Dales longest and most beautiful valleys . . .’ according to the guide books), Redruth (Cornwall), Tynedale (South-west Northumberland), Rosslyn Park (Wandsworth).

Jersey will, of course, honour all of these fixtures but there will be obvious financial constraints
while wives, girlfriends and the like will have to get used to saying good bye to their other halves for half a dozen full weekends, at least, during the coming rugby season.

According to a national redtop the cost of going to a single match in the Premier League next year has gone up 18 per cent and, on average, is now a hefty £101.04p.
Meanwhile, at the European Cup final between Barcelona and Manchester United at Wembley (not taking into account the price of a ticket) cups of tea were selling for £3 and a Twix bar for £2.20.

At St Peter’s this year admission has been £5 and a half-time cup of tea £1. ‘Nuff said.

And a thank you to Tyler and Neil for keeping me up to date on the Ist XV’s bid for promotion last weekend.

As regular readers will know, I was at my daughter’s wedding that day and at 3 pm was about to begin my main course at the after-service reception.

Neil, one of Sarah’s friends sitting next to me, knew how exasperated I was at being unable to be in two places at once, at the same time.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, shortly before the speeches began. ‘I’ll ask Tyler to listen out for you.’
Tyler is his nine-year-old son who was being looked after by his mother in law.
Surreptitiously, he phoned him. ‘Tyler,’ he said. ‘I want you to go on a mission. Are you up for it?’
‘Yes!’ I heard Tyler say, excitedly, followed by a pause. ‘Dad – what’s a mission?’
Anyway, for the next two hours the lad sat diligently l at his dad’s computer, phoning his dad whenever there was a score.

Thanks, Neil, Tyler. Mission accomplished.
For virtually all of Sunday afternoon I was behind the barricades in St Helier, watching race after race during the third Rubis Town Criterium, organised by Vélo Sport Jersey.

Having been a ‘Townie’ for over three years, I couldn’t imagine being in a better place that Sunday. The weather was fair; there were no cars on the roads and the races were the epitome of cat’n’mouse encounters.

In the ladies’ criterium, for example, 16-year-old Lucy Garner destroyed the rest from the start yet came into the finish without a sweat mark on her. ‘I found my rhythm and was riding within my comfort zone after that,’ she said.

At the time she didn’t know it but her two fellow Team Motorpoint riders, Hannah Barnes and Hannah Walker (second and third) were destroying any possible challengers behind her as they changed lead in the following pack . . . slowed down . . . or simply got ahead of any other rider wanting to challenge for the front.

Okay, it was a kind of gamesmanship – but this is team racing and as Jersey’s Richard Tanguy (16th in the men’s elite) said afterwards, ‘You need team support in races like this. I raced my b……. off, if you can print that, but hopefully Team Jersey will perform better in a few weeks time in the Isle of Wight.’

Also on that Sunday, I spoke to 14-year-old Oliver Lowthorpe who won the Jersey Dairy 13-16 Youth Academy Criterium, taking the lead and holding it from fellow Academy rider, Ryan O’Shea (15), on the very last lap.

‘When did you know you’d won it?’ I asked Oliver after the race.

‘We took it in turns most of the race but at the back corner past Cyril Le Marquand House there’s a slight upturn and I knew that Ryan’s not a hill climber, so I accelerated there,’ he said.
‘Slight incline? Hill climb outside Cyril Le Marquand House?’ I’ve looked repeatedly at the road next to the States’ offices and I’ve come to the conclusion that the world of cycling is very much an enigma to me.

So, congratulations to Tony Moffa, Velo Sport and all the officials and volunteers who gave their time for what is proving to be a focal point in the Jersey calendar. Every rider I spoke to afterwards was full of praise for the course, for the smooth running and for the organization of an event they all want to come back to next year. It really was a ‘Grand Day Out’ but couldn’t have been so if it hadn’t been thought through, and run, with the most meticulous eye for detail.

Finally … this week, at a time when there were so many events going on from the archers doing so well in their inter-insular; to the rugby at St Peter, to the horse racing at Les Landes, let me finish this comment piece with praise, again, for the next generation of potential Island superstars.

First, to praise the work that the Jersey Cycling Association’s Youth Academy is doing – there were over 100 junior cyclists in training only a few nights ago and I’ve been told this isn’t unusual not just for one, but for two or three sessions a week.

And so on to the likes of young Victorian College student Stanley Livingston who returned from the Jeux des Iles with two silver medals, when both of them were so nearly gold.

Jersey, arguably, has never had so much sporting potential through youngsters who, if given the right training and the right incentive, will prove world-beaters. As Jon Brennan (still in his 20s) said after being named man of the match in the rugby club’s win over Loughborough. ‘Unbelievable. Coming through the Academy and being a teenager in one of the bottom leagues ten years ago, I can’t believe what’s happened to me. Simply unbelievable.’