It seems that an artificial turf surface is to be laid at the Junior Lyceum in Hamrun. An excellent idea if ever there was one! Surely all the schoolchildren will benefit from it.

As has happened in other schools, this facility will be used by local football clubs and their nurseries after school hours. However, rumours circling around Hamrun are rife that only one particular club will have this benefit and the irony of it all is that the club is not Hamrun Spartans FC. I have been assured that the Spartans have written time and time again to have the use of this new facility, but it seems that these appeals are falling on deaf ears.

I believe the Spartans used to train at the Lyceum in very difficult conditions. I also remember the Hamrun youngsters having to train on tarmac with relative damage to their joints. But that was the best you could have had 10 to 15 years ago. Now that investment in sport and schools is tangible, it is incredible that such a facility in the heart of Hamrun is to be denied to the Hamrunizi, of all people!

Nursery officials have to fork out hundreds if not thousands of liri each year to provide training facilities for their young players. I am sure that a reasonable and fair timetable to share the facilities at this school, even with other clubs in the area, would be the ideal solution. But to leave the Hamrun boys out of the Lyceum gates would be a slap in the face to all the hard work by club and nursery officials.

Charmaine Pace

Gwardamangia