Our World Cup Legacy
The Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007), for all intents and purposes has been completed in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Never mind the fact that we are to stay as a standby venue until the conclusion of the entire programme. We are still essentially out of it. We have done our part. We are finished.
Kaput!What have we got? Legacy!Since the entire region’s Local Organising Committees (LOC) for the CWC2007 have seen it fit to hold fast to the latest buzz word, legacy, it seems important that we spend some more time addressing the legacy that we have left to successive generations of Vincentians and indeed the Caribbean peoples.
Facilities
In every country involved in CWC2007 we have built some major facilities and done considerable work on the nation’s infrastructure. In some instances the populace have stood in awe wondering much like Alice in Wonderland, whether the political directorates have suddenly gone mad.
Everywhere the politicians have engaged themselves in some heady expenditures, many seeming not to have understood beforehand what they were getting themselves into and certainly, for the most part, without any clear determination of future usage to the benefit of the masses and to justify the expenditures.
Many have taken the liberty to pay for the sports infrastructure from the public purse without due consultation.
In a period of consultative democracy and heavy emphasis on sports tourism one would have expected that there would have been full involvement of the national sports fraternity, at the very least.
No such luck, especially here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The other sporting disciplines of Athletics, Football, and Rugby, all users of Arnos Vale, have been seemingly exempted from being consulted in any meaningful way on developments at the refurbished facility. The decision-making at almost every level has been influenced by the demands of Cricket and no other sport.
In Jamaica critics have asked fundamental questions about the developments in Trelawney since the culture of the community does not readily lend itself to the kind of changes that have been imposed on them.
In Guyana, it appears that the governing body for the sport is not in any way anxious to take responsibility for the ownership and maintenance of the new facility developed for the CWC2007. Instead, it leaves that responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the government. Here again, the reason is simple. The maintenance requirements may well be beyond the capability of the association.
Barbados seems to have organised itself for the future and may well have understood perhaps more than any other LOC the precise meaning of the term legacy. However, it remains a shame to many that the country that considers itself in possession of the Mecca of Cricket in the Caribbean – Kensington Oval – did not see it fit to install lights at the venue given the global drift towards day-night matches in Cricket.
Sports Tourism
The view has been mooted in several quarters that given that all of the countries involved in the CWC2007 now have the capability to host major Cricket matches in the future and therefore we can witness a significant increase in Cricket competitions or activities involving the sport. It is also expected that this will bolster sports tourism in these countries in particular.
Off the top of one’s head that seems and sounds logical. The reality may be something quite different.
Cricket is one of the dying sports in the Caribbean. The game has failed to engender the enthusiasm of old. Evidence of this was the poor attendance at the recent semi-finals and final of the KFC Cup, a one-day series, in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Decidedly poor planning and the failure to energise itself in the region together with the very weak organisation of Cricket competitions in the region has meant a loss of interest in the sport at the regional and national levels in the Caribbean.
Outside of Barbados, not one of the other countries involved in the CWC2007 appears to have as yet engaged in any sort of medium and long-term strategic planning for the optimal use of the refurbished and/or new facilities.
There is nothing in West Indies Cricket at any level to suggest to us that St Vincent and the Grenadines will be host to more Cricket matches on an annual basis than currently obtains.
Indeed we may well conclude that for the most part the much-vaunted sports tourism legacy may be more expressions of hope than reality.
Volunteers
In all of the Caribbean countries playing host to the CWC2007 attempts have been made to develop a cadre of volunteers to meet the requirements of the event. Here again, the responses of the various countries have differed considerably.
While some have been late in seeking out appropriate people for training and others have been pulling hairs from their heads, others have established a more professional approach.
In some cases, the country has utilised the opportunity afforded by the hosting of the CWC2007 to develop a national Volunteer Corps. Essentially, therefore, one important legacy in such cases is the fact that some countries that are serious about sports tourism now have available to them a corps of individuals and groups that have been trained and who may well make themselves available for the hosting of future sporting events.
Instead of having to reinvent the wheel as it were, some countries could easily aid the sporting bodies in bidding to host regional and international sporting events on a regular basis such as would engender greater income-earning capacity from a professional sports tourism thrust.
Organisational skills
The hosting of the CWC2007 has facilitated, in some cases, the bringing together of several professional people in a sports-organisational framework in pursuit of a common objective.
The approach here mentioned means that in each of the countries involved in the hosting of matches there should now be a cadre of competent persons capable of engaging their skills to organise future sporting events in the interest of national development.
It is unfortunate though that in a number of countries the Cricket fraternity and the politicians have sought to keep the organisation for the CWC2007 in a manner akin to a secret lodge, leaving everything to a select few and in a number of instances deliberately omitting some highly qualified and experienced personnel. In this sense, there was no real attempt at bringing together the very best minds and expertise available in some countries to ensure optimal success.
In the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, the two most recent university graduates in Sports management were not in any serious way involved in the organisation of the warm-up matches. Maybe it was all a case of adopting an approach that saw the event as merely hosting warm-up matches and therefore saw no real benefit in seeking assistance from such new-found expertise.
Small wonder then that young graduates are frustrated and are forced to find work elsewhere their intellect and newly acquired skills are considered valuable and eagerly put to use.
The end result, therefore, is that in some countries the legacy will witness a corps of competence at the level of sports management skills. In some other countries, we will have accepted mediocrity and called it our best.
The Bid process
The various governing bodies of the cricketing nations of the Caribbean had to engage themselves in a Bid Process to earn the right to host matches in the CWC2007. For many of them, this was the first time that they were ever engaged in such a practice.
It remains one of the surprising features among sporting organisations in the Caribbean that Cricket in the region seemed
not to have had much experience in having to bid for anything. One can only hazard a guess that this may well have to do with the very low value of regional and Cricket competitions that no one really wants to bid for them. The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) itself such a weak organisation has been unable to elevate the standard of any regional competition to the level where they warrant a Bid process of some substance.
Of course, since many had no prior experience, they immediately sought help from outside. This is consistent with the legacy of centuries of slavery and colonialism. Rather than first explore the home front for pertinent expertise it was in many cases assumed that none existed and therefore the first and perceived best option was to look elsewhere.
Whatever about the final outcome there is little doubt that in each of the participating countries some attempt was made at preparing a Bid Document, a common feature among international and increasingly among regional sporting bodies. This should count for something.
Maintenance
The major challenge in the CWC2007 legacy is really the ability of the region’s governments to maintain the spate of facilities that they have constructed, especially in light of the fact that the game continues to follow the path of the West Indies Cricket team in so far as rapid loss of popularity among the masses is concerned.
In Grenada, the new cricket facilities at the Queen’s Park has sparked much debate about what can be done following the conclusion of the CWC2007. The former Chairman of the Stadium Committee there has already indicated that he does not wish to have anything to do with it following the World Cup. The reason is simple. When the stadium was considerably smaller in nature than is now the case the then Committee of Management was told that the government did not have the resources to maintain it. The Committee, therefore, had to engage in a series of activities to raise the needed funds and still found it a very difficult task.
In the case of Grenada therefore a survey discovered that the usage of the former facility (pre-hurricane Ivan) saw the stadium being used mostly for entertainment purposes with the very sport for which it was constructed leveled with religious groupings significantly well behind.
In other words, entertainment occupied the stadium for some 70% of its total usage while the sport of cricket and religious activities were level at 15% usage.
The situation in respect of the Arnos Vale Playing Field is no different. The National Sports Council (NSC) has been hard-pressed to meet the costs associated with its maintenance. One is doubtful that the NSC has ever been able to meet these costs in full in any given year, even with income from the occasional One Day International Cricket match.
This may well have been the reason why the Arnos Vale stadium has been in such a state of disrepair, for the most part. Had anyone been privy to the structures at Arnos Vale when the refurbishing work was being undertaken one would readily have understood the very low level of maintenance that the facility enjoyed over the years.
We have been particularly poor in the area of maintenance of our sports facilities generally. This seems something of a historical fact in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The best-kept sports facilities here have always been those that were privately owned and managed.
In many instances, the NSC is bereft of anyone in its immediate employ who has the expertise in preventive maintenance. Thereby hangs a tale. What has happened is that it is left to the appointed Board to determine the needs of the organisation’s facilities in this particular aspect. Madness!
Sports facilities are expensive ventures and must be treated as such.
Unlike those who suggest that governments have little choice but to expend resources on culture never perhaps expecting it to pay for itself, sport can and often does make significant contributions to the national economy in a variety of ways.
As we end our part of the CWC2007 here in St Vincent and the Grenadines we have little choice but to wait on the powers that be to suddenly fashion for us a plan for the continued use and maintenance of the Cricket facilities that have been developed.
We also have to wait to see the unfolding of the legacy that the LOC pundits have been boasting about for so long.
If the Arnos Vale could not have been fully completed as originally intended we cannot feel confident at the present time that it will eventually be so completed.
Let us wait and see how long it takes to repair the netball courts at Arnos Vale.
Let us not have the damage we have done in our haste to engage in four or five days of Cricket in St Vincent and the Grenadines become more of a legacy than that which the organisers originally hoped for.
