North Village are planning to rename Bernard Park, their home ground since 1998, after one of the club’s former presidents when the facility reopens with state-of-the-art lights at the start of the football season.

Work to install lights at the facility, funded initially through an $870,000 grant from Fifa, started last week with the driving of piles into the ground.

Shervin Dill, the Village president, would not be drawn into revealing the new name of the field.

“Once we get the lights we’re looking to rename Bernard Park after one of our former presidents, but I’m not going to say what the name is going to be for now,’’ Dill told The Royal Gazette.

“I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but we’re looking to make it a stadium and it will certainly be named in honour one of our former presidents.”

At the beginning of the year, Mark Wade, president of the BFA, informed stakeholders at the association’s congress that the cost of the required material and construction work for the piles had soared by 160 per cent, from $236,000 to $613,000, with the total costs of the project anticipated to climb from $731,000 to nearly $1 million.

“We are delighted that the work to install lights at the field has finally began,” said Dill, who has been the Village president since 2000.

“It has been a five-year project that’s finally coming to fruition and has been delayed by Covid-19 and increasing costs.

“We've been working closely with the BFA, who are the project managers, to resolve whatever issues were there.

“We were able to talk to contractors to reduce costs that had escalated to such a high amount that caused a concern in the first place. We’ve been meeting on a monthly basis for a few months since that BFA congress, and everything is definitely on track.

“We are pushing for the start of the season, which will be September. The field is completely closed down and the contractors have full access 24/7.

“If we can stay on schedule, I’m hoping that by the beginning of the season we’ll be in a position to open the field with the new lights.”

Having a modern lighting system will ensure that Village do not lose out on home advantage and revenue during evening matches such as when Kenny Thompson’s side were forced to play their crucial home league fixture against PHC, a game which decided the Premier Division, at Dame Flora Duffy Stadium.

“For our entire history, we've had to outsource our home field for night matches,’’ the Village president said.

“That was always a financial loss to us, so the gain will be that we’ll be able to host all of our night matches.

“We’re looking to share this facility as an alternative lights location for sister clubs. Last season, we took on board Wolves and we allowed them to use our field for their home matches.

“It proved to be financially beneficial to Wolves and North Village. With that option, it gives us the ability to become a lot more financially independent by being able to utilise that facility.

“These new lights are LED and the operational costs for these will be less than what we’re paying for the training lights we had.

“It’s four poles strategically placed to provide necessary lighting for the facility. We’re going to light up that whole place.

“We’re so ecstatic about this new opportunity for North Village, which is certainly going to give us better tools to function with our youth programmes.

“Installation of lights will solve the issue of a referees shortage. If we have more night matches, then we schedule matches through the competitions committee to have the referees available for the matches to take place.”