IT TOOK THREE DECADES to build a champion boys team at Queen’s College.
Erecting a pavilion there seems to be taking just as long.
Twenty years after first attempting to construct a sports facility, the Husbands institution is trying its hand at it again. The school is seeking to raise more than $1.2 million to complete the long-awaited pavilion.
News of the latest fund-raising efforts came during an interview with Queen’s College principal Dr David Browne at the school’s recent inter-school sports celebrations this week.
“We’re trying to construct a sports facility [because] pavilion suggests a structure just to watch cricket and football from,” Browne disclosed.
“What we want to have here is a facility which will have a gym, a basement area to store materials and even a room that can house a class.
“We believe this pavilion will give us further impetus even though we are already doing well in sports.”
Built in 1990, the school’s Husbands compound was originally supposed to comprise a sports pavilion on one of the school’s two fields.
And work actually got started in 1991 as the foundation for the pavilion was laid between the cricket and football fields.
But the project was abandoned somewhere between that year and 1992.
“It is one of the most annoying problems for me,” expressed Browne.
“It was originally abandoned because of economic reasons and then I believe there were legal problems with building the structure during the intervening period.
“[Now] the structure has to be demolished and started from scratch because the steel and materials have been exposed to the elements for 20 years now. I think it is a case where we really see the necessity for this pavilion,” he added.
Long thought of as “just an academic institution”, Queen’s College has set about shedding its minnow status in sports over the last five years, most notably in athletics and basketball.
That renewed sporting focus led to the school’s first ever boys’ title at inter-school sports in 2008 before it repeated the feat just one week ago.
It also became the only secondary school to hold basketball’s Under-16, Under-19 and girls’ titles in the same calendar year during the 2009-2010 season.
But Browne believes Queen’s College is just scratching the surface in terms of its sporting ability, reasoning that the school’s efforts will be bolstered by the addition of a sports facility.
Under the chairmanship of publisher and chief executive officer of Nation Publishing, Vivian-Anne Gittens, Queen’s College has already embarked on some fund-raising efforts and will look to continue until it reaches the $1.2 million mark.
“This pavilion has been languishing down here since the 1990s, so we believe that we can no longer depend on Government to give us everything,” Browne remarked.
