Acquisition of artificial turf crucial to hockey development

–– says Guyana Hockey Board President

The Guyana Hockey Board (GHB) is in desperate need of an artificial turf to foster development of the sport, according to GHB President Philip Fernandes.
Guyana’s junior national teams (male and female) have only recently “produced the goods” at the Junior Pan American Games in Barbados. While this can be seen as an achievement for the country’s Hockey, the rewards can be much greater if the fraternity is equipped with the right resources. One such resource is an artificial turf, the effects of which Fernandes recently discussed in an interview.
“Basically, the game, when played on grass surfaces, is a different game,” Fernandes said about the difference between a grass pitch and an artificial surface.
He contended, “When we play on other surfaces, other areas, other fields, the techniques used are different; and so, you’re practising one thing, and when you go to compete, you have to tell the athletes to do something else.”
Then explained: “In simple terms: in grass hockey, we receive the ball, we control the ball, and then we move off and execute the next action. In international competition on artificial surface, you receive, control and execute the next action all in one motion. That can’t be done on grass.”
And he added: “It can’t be done on bumpy surfaces and flooded surfaces, and you have to train that consistently in order to get good at it. So, it’s a huge difference.”
Explaining how the lack of such a surface, or even an adequate number of facilities, is affecting the sport, he said: “Our ladies just competed against Uruguay. Chile has about 7000 players, Uruguay probably has a similar amount, 7000 women playing the game. Canada has over 10,000; USA, I’m told, has about a million or more women playing the game. On a basketball-size court, how many players can we really develop? This is a numbers game,” Fernandes related.
He added bluntly, “If you can get bigger numbers in the sport, you’re likely to find bigger pockets of talent or individual talent that can support the national programme. So, if we don’t get an artificial surface, the world will move away from us very soon. I would say that within another 10 years, it’ll be hard to beat anybody.”
With the right resources, Fernandes figures, Guyana’s potential is limitless, since there is an abundance of talent in the country currently.
“I think that, locally, we do need to broaden our base of coaches, and Robert and I have invested a lot of time and effort simply because we love the game and we have educated ourselves. We have gone to courses, we qualified ourselves, we’ve even gone and run courses in the region. This is something that we need to do more locally. So that indeed is a shortcoming of ours,” he detailed.
Fernandes commented on other avenues the GHB can take to develop the local game. He indicated, “However, to answer your question, I really believe that, in large part, at least at the Caribbean level, our teams could be top of the Caribbean. If we get proper facilities, we could get to be the top of the Caribbean, based on the talent that we have locally and the kind of coaching support that we have. I see no limit to that.”
When probed about any recent conversation on acquiring an artificial turf, Fernandes said he has had some positive conversations with Government.
“Recently, we have not had any talks with the international Federation. Lots have changed since then. We’ve had more positive talks with the local government, where, in terms of a space to lay a turf and even the installation of a turf, but it can’t come too soon. Right now, we’re still at the stage of talking, and I’m really anxious for us to get some tangible progress on this, because it’s actually crippling our sport at the moment,” the GHB President divulged.