Supporting sports development

With more than 100 years in sports, the Malteenoes Sports Club has become a tradition

By Venessa Deosaran

For 110 years, the Malteenoes Sports Club has provided a well-rounded curriculum of sports development for youths in their formative years. It has continued to fulfil its role in this area, with great success.
The Malteenoes Sports Club was founded in the year 1902. Its first president, Ferdinand Christopher Archer, a Barbadian who came to then British Guiana during his infant years, was a master tailor. At age 18, he recognised the need for an alternative organization to provide badly needed recreational and social requirements of the underprivileged working class who could not access membership at the more exclusive Georgetown Cricket Club and British Guiana Sports Club.
The club was initially located at Eve Leary on Camp Street in Georgetown where the police commissioner’s residence now stands. With the militarization of Eve Leary during the Second World War, the ground was absorbed into the military zone, and Malteenoes relocated to its present location on Thomas Lands, with freehold ownership of its land.
Malteenoes Sports Club fulfilled its perceived role during those early years by providing young men and women with the opportunity to actively participate in a variety of sports, including football, cricket, hockey, table tennis, dominoes, badminton and scrabble.
Amongst those excelling at the highest level of sports were well-known individuals such as Barrington Browne, Clayton Lambert, Kenneth Wong, Colin Stewart, Pat Legall, George Green, Pat Britton and Dennis France.  Also, Joseph “Pirate” Alexander, Rudolph Harper, Rex Mc Kay, Claude Raphael and Edward Richmond, W.G Griffith, Crawley Hunte, Rita Braithwaite, Charlie Jones, John Trim, Glendon Gibbs, Rex Collymore and Iris Straker, have all made excellent contributions by serving and participating in sports at the national administrative level.
Over the past 20 years, Malteenoes has been foremost in the promotion and development of youth cricket. The youth programme of 1984 fuelled the intense youth cricket drive that produced a constant crop of very competitive young cricketers. The high point of this programme saw the Cricket Academy initiative being formalized at Malteenoes from July 1993 to date.
On and off-field, Malteenoes members throughout the years have been extremely influential in the improvement and development of sports in general, and cricket in particular, here. In this regard, the club has continued to perform its role, despite the many obstacles encountered throughout the passage of time, while assisting in the initiation, promotion and development of sports as a means of educating young people and directing their energies and efforts towards meaningful activity.
The annual cricket academy is nationally recognized not only for providing cricketing skills for young people, but also for guiding youth to basic life and organizational skills as well; one reason why there is continued rehabilitative work being done to improve the club’s activities.
The final phase of ground rehabilitation at the Malteenoes Sport Club, facilitated by a grant from the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, will contribute greatly to the development of sports at the club.
A recent club achievement that illustrates the determination and talents of the Malteenoes was the superb performance of the Malteenoes Table Tennis group, at their first appearance at the Trinidad and Tobago Table Tennis Association’s 2012 Silverbowl Tournament in Chaguanas. The club won a total of 8 titles in various categories.

Chelsea Edghill won both the Under 15 and Under 18 titles; Jamaali Homer won the Under 13 and brought third in the Under 15 girls category. Kyle Edghill brought second the in boys Under 13 category, and shared third place with club mate Shamar Britton in the Under 15 category. Shamar Britton brought third in the Under 18 boys category, and Rajiv Muneshwar earned third place in the boys Under 13 category.
It was a sterling performance on the team’s first tour, and a further step in the development and evolution of the premier table tennis training programme in Guyana. This was possible because of the diligence of the coach and management team.
The club is focused on continuing its efforts to ensure that their players are regionally exposed by participating in similar tournaments throughout the Caribbean.
Since its inception, the Malteenoes Sport Club has always maintained a tradition of giving opportunities to the less privileged in our society. The club continues to be an avenue for young sportsmen and women to realize their goals and aspirations.
For more information on the club’s sports programme, visit Malteenoes Sport Club page on Facebook. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)