Last day at the Guernsey Island games.
Yesterday the St Helena Football team played their final game when they met with Froya. Froya is a Norwegian Island just off the mainland identical to St Helena in population, the Island of Froya is connected to the Norwegian mainland by an undersea tunnel.
The final match was streamed live on Facebook with full coverage and commentating by the opposition media representative from Froya, who did a great job covering the match-updating viewers in various parts of the world, including viewers on the local TV on St Helena and Froya supporters.
Froya won the match by scoring four goals, Saint Helena scored two, Shane Stroud scored the first goal, and Rico Benjamin scored the second.
The BBC Guernsey TV team were waiting for the match to finish to interview Shane about his human story of scoring his first goal, leaving St Helena for the first time and taking part in the games and sharing his experience about coming to Guernsey.
The 1800 BBC news carried the story about Shane and his team’s journey.
Another keen local Island teenage supporter by the name of Laurianne, who won a school competition, appeared pitch side to collect Rico Benjamin’s shirt that she was promised earlier that week. (Images of all of the happenings can be found on the NSASH website and social media feeds.
The swimming finals also took place in the afternoon at the Beau Sejour, which is one of the finest leisure centres on the Island. All of the Swimming competitors had a great week and achieved some of their personal best results. All of the latest updates on the timings can be found on the website https://results.guernsey2023.gg/
Day four of the Golf competition will continue today at the royal guernsey golf club; however, it is predicted to have bad weather with high winds on the North Coast, which is not in favour of the participants.
The games will close today with a closing ceremony at the Footies Lane venue where everyone is invited. Footies Land is the main multi-use sports stadium in St Peter, Footies Lane will also host the last football final between Ynys Mon v Jersey.
The team will pack up and start their Journey back across the English Channel to the mainland UK, but a status report from condor ferries has warned of delays and ferry schedule changes for the journey home due to high winds over the next two days with no service on a Sunday. However, things could change.
An interesting fact from the St Helena team leading up to and visiting the Guernsey Island games is that the media coverage online has created a buzz about St Helena both at the games and online.
The NSASH Facebook pages alone that publish all the as-it-happens have reached a unique audience of 60.000 as of today, which is likely to increase after tonight’s stream and all of the media that will be published over the next few weeks as we get ready for Trinidad and Tobago Commonwealth Youth Games in August. The St Helena media single-handed team member is also streaming the closing ceremony tonight on request for the team’s families and friends to view back home..