What do the Bermuda Football Association and the Bermuda Cricket Board have in common?

For starters they are Bermuda's official national sports. Since this is the case, I wonder whether the two have ever sat down together to discuss even simple issues like the timing of their respective leagues starting. There seems to be an issue in the lack of time between the two sports, causing ground issues for the clubs and training issues for the players.

Football ends mid April, while cricket is scheduled to start the first week in May, leaving clubs just three weeks to prepare their fields, this is simply not enough time. Clubs need at least four-to-six weeks to allow grass to grow back and the wickets to be properly prepared. This is why for the last few years league cricket has started late.

The mind boggles as to why the Premier Division has been idle over the past few weeks. If the football season was played with the absence of fewer bye weeks then the season could be finished by the middle of March, thus giving cricket a minimum of four-to-six weeks to prepare for their season.

Not only would this benefit the club grounds, but also the players who play two sports. Take someone like myself for instance. I have been playing cricket and football for the last 20 years in Bermuda without any breaks in-between. Now I am paying for it later in my career as I have picked up several injuries forcing me to retire from the two sports that I love.

Take a look around the island at all of the sportsmen who play or played both sports and see how many of them are struggling with injuries – Janeiro Tucker, Dean Minors, Corey Hill, Greg Foggo, Lionel Cann, and Clevie Wade, to name a few. I often wonder if our careers might have been prolonged had there been a month break between the two sports to allow us to recover.

Am I as a parent required to force my son not to play both sports? I do not think so, but we really have to start monitoring this dilemma, in order to protect our future top athletes.

Let's face it, our pool is already limited due to the size and population of our country. The opportunities that are available in both sports encourage parents and the children to play both, so if we are not careful in how we structure the two programmes then these kids will be burnt out by the time they reach their prime.

Having a five-to-six week break between sports has more then one benefit. Not only do players get to refresh themselves, but the fields will have better playing surfaces. Last summer St.George's did not open their field until June, due to experts performing specialist work on the field and pitch.

It was as recently as Sunday as I passed by St.George's Cricket Club to watch North Village destroy Hamilton Parish that I heard a spectator say, "Man this is the best field on the island outside of the National Stadium".

We have to make sure that we are giving our athletes the best opportunity to succeed.

Improving the quality of our fields and wickets is a must if we are going to produce exceptional players.

Many of our young footballers have gone over to England on trials and have been unsuccessful. Part of it is due to lack of technical ability, which simply comes from players playing on poor surfaces. They have to spend so much time focusing on controlling the ball due to bumpy surfaces that it takes away their ability to think about their next move.

Where is the best football played? National Stadium, simply because players do not have to worry about the surface so they can just play more freely with their head up rather then down wondering if the ball is going to bobble.

I would urge both the Bermuda Football Association and the Bermuda Cricket Board to sit down and meet to discuss issues such as this.

One solution would be to jointly come up with a national grounds committee, whereby a group of three or four men focus solely on taking care of the fields in Bermuda.

Tending to them daily, sprinkling them, cutting them, weeding them, doing whatever it is necessary to make our fields better for our players to play on. I guarantee if something of this nature was done the quality of our game in both sports would rise.

At the end of the day if we are going to invest so much money in our national sports we have to give our players quality grounds to play on.

A thought to ponder: Whether players want to admit this or not, at a young age you can get away with playing both sports, but if you want to be serious and excel as a professional athlete a choice has to be made – cricket or football?