FIRST WORD – Lower BCA divisions need sponsors too

THE RECENT WORLD CUP football finals in South Africa certainly overshadowed several developments in local sport.With the spotlight focused on Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Germany, England, France, Italy and unfancied teams Uruguay, Ghana and Paraguay, the failed drug tests of our 2008 Sports Personality of the Year and another local bodybuilder, went almost unnoticed.The Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) finally landed a sponsorship deal for its flagship Division One competition with LIME, but won’t it be even sweeter to also garner support for the Intermediate and Division Two competitions? LIME already sponsors the Under-15 competition where some schools still don’t have covers and the boys bat and bowl on impaired pitches whenever it rains.The 2010 season is in full swing with the Sagicor Twenty20 already completed, but the long overdue awards presentation for the 2009 season is still to be held.While the WICB High Performance Centre has bowled off at the 3Ws Oval, the signs from last week’s two-day practice match are hardly encouraging with two fast bowlers in the programme, Shannon Gabriel and Brandon Bess, bowling a plethora of no-balls.And after the much publicised unveiling, the selectees for the Everton Weekes Centre of Excellence, on the eve of the BCA’s elections last year, that innings still hasn’t bowled off. On the local football front, the 2010 season ended with Claytons Kola Tonic Notre Dame doing the double and attention now switches to preparations for the upcoming Digicel Caribbean Championships. Barbados will host a zone in October but will our national team, which has slipped down the FIFA world rankings because of its inactivity, be afforded warm-up “friendlies” after none was played last year? Also, will the Barbados Football Association, notwithstanding the slow progress with the Goal project at Wildey, try to build on the World Cup hype and step up its 100th anniversary plans?