Guernsey Cricket goes that extra (nautical) mile for the Inter-Insular

Guernsey’s cricketers, officials and supporters had an Inter-Insular trip to remember on Saturday, with the temporary loss of the usual inter-island ferry service requiring some imaginative travel arrangements to ensure the annual fixture against Jersey could go ahead.

With the timing of the match making sea travel to Jersey impractical for the playing party, Guernsey’s players, team management and officials took to the skies, travelling to Jersey with Aurigny in order to arrive in time for the start of the fixture.

Getting home again was a rather different experience.

Following the match, the players and team management swapped aircraft for RIBs for the journey back across to Guernsey.

While the result ultimately went Jersey’s way, the considerable effort involved in simply getting the Guernsey contingent to Jersey, and safely home again, demonstrated the commitment surrounding one of Channel Islands cricket’s longest-standing rivalries.

Guernsey Cricket Chief Operating Officer Richard Headington said:

“An Inter-Insular is always a special occasion, although this one will certainly be remembered for reasons beyond the cricket. With the usual ferry unavailable, there was a considerable logistical challenge in getting everybody to Jersey and back. The early start meant that our players, management and officials needed to fly to Jersey with Aurigny, while the return journey involved RIBs and a rather different experience on the water.

It took a great deal of cooperation and flexibility from a number of people and organisations, and we are extremely grateful to everyone who helped make the arrangements possible. It also says a great deal about the importance of the Inter-Insular that players, team management, officials and supporters were prepared to find alternative ways of crossing the water to ensure Guernsey was represented and supported in Jersey.”

Guernsey Cricket would particularly like to thank Bailiwick Boat Charters, Seafaris Jersey and Alderney Shipping for their assistance with the logistics and transportation involved in the trip.

Thanks are also extended to everyone else who assisted behind the scenes.

The annual Inter-Insular remains one of the highlights of the Channel Islands cricket calendar and has been contested by Guernsey and Jersey since 1950.

This year’s journey may not have been the conventional way to travel to an away fixture, although it provided another memorable chapter in the long history of cricketing rivalry between the islands.