The answer, of course, is when it’s a Jersey team playing in a UK competition.
Home draws often mean either forking out for your opponents’ travel and accommodation, or simply reversing the tie venue – often the cheapest option.
Old Victorians Veterans hockey team are the latest to suffer, with their home draw in the second round of the HA Trophy against Southampton HC most likely to be played …
in Southampton.
Said Vets captain Tim Herbert: ‘As soon as the draw was made I contacted Southampton to see whether they planned to come over.
They said that they had asked their players and couldn’t get 11 who were prepared to travel, partly because of the cost but also because they have a match the day before.
We’d prefer to play at home, but the other club has the right to refuse.
If we insisted they travel to Jersey then they could probably insist that we paid for them to come over.’ That view was confirmed by England Hockey’s competitions and events manager Stephen Barlow, who said that the regulation is that Jersey has to play a home game on the mainland unless the opposition agrees to travel.
‘I agree that it isn’t fair on the Jersey players, but that was the deal when they entered the competitions.
And we are really pleased that Jersey teams enter and I have a lot of people who ask to be drawn against Jersey so that they can travel to the Channel Isles.
We’d love to be in a position to subsidise the CI teams, but we don’t have that sort of money.’ Herbert said: ‘We speak to the other club and reach a compromise.
In last year’s competition we were drawn at home but the West Gloucestershire team wouldn’t come to Jersey.
Instead we flew to Southampton and they drove down and we played at a neutral ground.
We don’t get any outside funding so we couldn’t afford to pay for teams to come over.
Anyway, we have the fun of jumping on a plane and playing in the UK, it costs about £90 each, and it’s a lot less hassle.’ Southampton HC secretary Mike Pollard explained that the club subsidises their players to the tune of 13p a mile for each car that is used to take players to matches in the Hampshire and Surrey leagues in which they play, and pays out £30-40 for bed and breakfast accommodation if they have to drive further and the money is raised from a £10 fee for every match.
‘We’re looking at £70 each for return flights to Jersey as well as hotel accommodation, which would take it up to around £100 a player.
We can’t afford it,’ Pollard said.
‘Look at it this way,’ Herbert said.
‘Us jumping on a plane to play a UK team in the UK is a lot less daft than the complete nonsense of the Jeremie Cup, where two Jersey teams used to have to get on a plane to play each other in Guernsey!’
