Legacy must mean making our fields available

What this means therefore is that the work has been done under the watchful eyes of an LOC that seems to have taken unto itself its own understanding of the needs of the other users of these facilities without ever really ensuring that the democratic process of participation in decision-making extended to the governing bodies of the aforementioned sports.

Field utilisation
Since the conclusion of the CWC2007 only Cricket has been allowed at the re-worked facilities. That must count for something. It certainly sends a very clear message to the other sports that formerly used these facilities.
Little concern appears to have been paid to the many youths and others who utilised the Arnos Vale # 2 on a daily basis. The same can be said of the Sion Hill and Stubs Playing Fields.
While we watch as our youths die at the hands of each other little attention seems to be paid to the fact that we have deliberately closed the gates of some of our sporting facilities, located as they are in key population centres, to hundreds of youths who once frequented them.
We have left our youths little by way of alternatives when it comes to going to have a sweat on afternoons and on Sunday mornings.
Associations other than Cricket have been provided with no response in terms of when it would be possible for them to access these facilities. And we dare suggest that Cricket does not have pride of place in this country.

Lack of planning
St Vincent and the Grenadines can readily suggest that ours has been a very poor example where legacy is concerned.
Our administrators of the CWC2007 did not engage in the kind of planning to which Mann referred.
In many respects the operations of the LOC was at best a closed shop, with the insiders being the ones in the know and little advice being sought from the administrators of the other sporting disciplines that use our outdoor facilities.
The resul
t of poor planning is what we now have, a nation with youths desperate for opportunities to use their once sporting haunts only to find them with bolted gates. It is indeed a recipe for disaster.
It is not possible for those in authority to readily spout their commitment to a better way of life for our youths in sport while at the same time pay scant attention to those very youths through the insensitivity displayed by the LOC.
The real legacy may well be something that we as a nation would not wish to see in our lifetime.