Harty on Rebels’ Guernsey trip and the Ashes

WORTHING Football Club’s trip to Guernsey in the Ryman League at the end of last month should have been an exciting adventure for all concerned but has turned into a nightmare.

Elsewhere in the Worthing Herald, it’s reported that a number of people connected with Worthing Football Club have been charged by the Ryman League, including two directors.

You don’t have to be Inspector Morse to work out that I am both a director and, as I reported at the time, was on the said excursion. So, I freely admit that, as one of the most senior club officials on the plane, I have been charged with bringing the league into disrepute.

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Despite getting up on two occasions to tell the offending players to sit down and behave themselves, the Ryman League feel I should have done more.

Whether this includes executing a “Bruce Lee Roundhouse Move” in mid-flight or getting both offenders in a Mick McManus headlock will obviously be discussed at my hearing?

Needless to say, I maintain I and others in authority, did as much as we could in the circumstances, without fanning an already volatile situation.

There are divisions in any football club but I can state, as a board of directors, we are as one.

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This shouldn’t have happened, individuals have let the club, its fans and, perhaps equally as important, the borough of Worthing down as a whole.

Worthing FC has been in existence for 127 years and will survive this and again, in time, thrive with or without existing personnel at the club.

First blood to the Aussies in Brisbane, but against a backdrop of behaviour that is anything but cricket.

There’s no doubt that Australia were the better cricketing side and thoroughly deserved their win but, given their conduct, including their captain being fined 20 per cent of his match fee for his veiled threats about broken arms to Jimmy Anderson, is the result actually flawed?

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England, with or without Jonathan Trott, another factor that seems to have been all but skirted over by the Australian Cricket Board, will come again, and, hopefully, retain the Ashes, as the hosts seem prepared to win them back whatever the collateral damage to the sport as a whole.

And, so, with Harty Junior and I embarking on the holiday of a lifetime Down Under, this is my final column of the year. I’d like to thank all the readers and wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Peace and goodwill to all men (well, nearly all of them).

Have a good one, see you in 2014, Harty.

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