By Paul Reid, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE ST. James Football Association's (StJFA) 2003-04 season will kick off this afternoon with two games in the Alwill Con-struction Knock Out League.
The competition, which is open to teams in the St. James FA Sandals Division One and Western Confederation Super League, will see the Montego Bay Cricket Club taking on Barrett Town at Half Moon, while Kings and Broadway will meet at Albion.
$3M TO RUN COMPETITIONS
The season was launched at a press conference held at Hotel Grandiosa last Tuesday and president George Evans announced they had received sponsorship "of just around $3 million" to run 10 competitions, including two new ones.
The new competitions are the Steve Bucknor KO, which will be played among Division One teams, and the Gordon 'Butch' Stewart tourney to be played among the top four teams in the Division One. The Steve Bucknor KO will start on November 10.
At the press launch, Evans boasted that the St. James FA ran more competitions than any other FA in the island and ran more leagues than all the other three parishes in the Western Confederation combined.
STRAIGHT LEAGUE FORMAT
He announced that the Hart Senior League and the Sandals Division One will be run on a straight league format with the team with the most points after a home-and-away series being declared the winners.
The other leagues are the DB&G Under-13 competition, the Guardian Life Division Two, Western Sports KO and the Lennox Lewis Under-15, Under-17 and Under-20 competitions.
Mark Hart, who represented the Hart family which has been involved with the game in the parish since 1926, repeated his call for the improvement of grounds in the parish, as he said this would help improve the quality of the game.
Meanwhile, Evans also announced that five schoolboys would benefit from a $25,000 book grant to be given out by the board this season. Each awardee will be given $5,000 to help with purchasing books.
