Dear Editor,
I, like other Lindeners, wait with bated breath for the President’s /Jefford Classic at the Mackenzie Sports Club ground in Linden tomorrow.
Not that we are that much entertainment starved, or the most ardent athletics crowd in this part of the country. Rather, you could put it down to being, just like the organisers, foreign-minded. And, I say that tongue in cheek.
Following the event in the newspapers and on the television, we learnt that some of Guyana’s most renowned athletics personalities were expected from abroad to be present. From hearing of confirmation of to slated for, to hopefully, to consented to, to planning to, to steps being taken to and all the like, we were led to believe we would be seeing Aliann Pompey, Marion Burnett and Adam Harris and who ever else at the Classic. Recently it dwindled down to Pompey and Burnett with the former more confirmed than the latter.
Lo and behold, the news came that Pompey will not be here due to her work schedule. While she apologized, offered a prize and even advised that Burnett would be a huge draw for the event, in actual fact, did it have to take that to be stated to the organisers whom it is felt should have known of the impact and good sense in having Burnett, who is a Linden daughter of the soil available?
Very little was ever said of her coming or not. Even if it was intended as a surprise, Lindeners want to know so that we could welcome back our own in the environment where she started her successful athletics career.
Pompey is right that Burnett would be a huge draw but, now it looks like neither of them will be there.
Are Lindeners being slighted? Are Lindeners being taken for granted in a bait and switch game by the organisers?
One can understand that nobody can tell the organisers what to do with their event.
But we feel we are being goaded and we are not happy over the lack of regard given, even in relation to all the sponsors who expected to see their money spent in good sense.
I like other Lindeners, plan to just pass up on the Classic and take in some Futsal. After all, it’s time for us to stop being treated like sand-headed footballs and get with football in the sand.
Yours in sports,
Nicholas Beckles
