A valuable tradition is being lost at Island sports clubs as a result of problems with drugs and violence, past club presidents have claimed.

A string of violent assaults thrust sporting clubs into the public eye over the last week -- with four reported assaults at three different clubs. Similar problems, that were tied to gang activity, were also experienced by the clubs last year. One former club president, who experienced violence in the club's first hand, said the clubs are failing.

Fred W. Thomas was a former president and member of the now defunct Harrington Sound Social Club. A few years ago, he was viciously assaulted by a group of young men at the club.

"I was spat upon and punched twice before I began to fight back,'' said Mr.

Thomas.

"Being a former boxer, I didn't really want to fight back right away but I did. When these individuals found that the old man was holding his own, I was hit in the temple with a beer bottle. I was cut in the left temple but I was still fighting back and getting the best of them. But then I was hit with a metal object in the left temple and that put me in the hospital.'' Mr. Thomas said he still experiences problems with his equilibrium. "Ever since then I haven't felt right.'' But the assault was as much a psychological blow as a physical one to Mr.

Thomas because he had put so much personal effort into bringing the club back to life after it had been shut down for a dozen years due to problems with violence.

"I used to sneak out of my house at 5.30 a.m. when my wife was sleeping to go paint the walls down there,'' he said. But, he said, when the assault happened, only one person from the club even called to find out how he was.

"All I wanted was for individuals who were not members to stop smoking marijuana on the property and bringing beer bottles there because we didn't have a liquor licence,'' he said.

Mr. Thomas said that when the club was first closed down, members used to hang out on the porch and throw sarcastic remarks and obscenities at tourists and locals. Members were also getting into disagreements with one another and the club president of the time took it upon himself to shut it down.

The behaviour was a far cry from the role of the clubs in his father's day, Mr. Thomas said.

Then, workers would gather together in their spare time and help one another build houses. "They were men's men who would give you a day's work,'' he said.

"From integration time, the black clubs have deteriorated tremendously,'' said Mr. Thomas. "My father came from St. Kitts with many others and they built Devonshire Rec Club. But with the integration that has come around many young blacks don't want to volunteer free service in maintaining the clubs.'' "These clubs used to issue scholarships, throw picnics, help support families that fell into debt or into trouble,'' he said. But much of this strong tradition has now been lost.

"Members are disrespectful to officers of the clubs whether they are volunteers or being paid,'' he said.

Winters Burgess, a former president of Bailey's Bay Cricket Club, also feels that the clubs' tradition is being lost.

Mr. Burgess is no longer involved with the clubs.

Violence was a contributing factor to the decline of the clubs, he said, but there were others.

"The clubs are definitely not what they used to be,'' he said. "It used to be more of a family thing. My wife and my children used to go. We'd go out to the field on Good Fridays and other holidays. Family was all a part of that, but that doesn't happen anymore.'' Mr. Thomas also said clubs are no longer a place he wants to frequent with his family. He took his wife to a football match about two years ago, he said, and a group of men came and sat directly in front to them and began smoking marijuana. "I asked them to move and they refused. That awful smelling smoke was coming right at my wife.'' But when he asked an official to speak to the men, he was told that he and his wife should move if it bothered them. "We haven't been again since,'' he said.

Only strong black leadership can save the clubs now, he said. "They have to deal with drugs around the clubs as strongly as they deal with drugs around the schools,'' Mr. Thomas said.

"The younger group coming along must change their attitude, they must realise drugs are not the way.''