Western Stars president Devarr Boyles is optimistic that St John’s Field will be ready for use at some stage during the 2026-27 football season.

The facility is undergoing renovations that will enable Dandy Town to play home matches, which they have not done since 2019 as a result of small rocks on the turf surface making it unsafe for sports.

When The Royal Gazette visited the Pembroke field on Wednesday, construction workers were applying topsoil to the grass.

“We had a meeting with the Bermuda Football Association last week,” Boyles said.

“We have tentatively put ourselves into that rotation of them coming to inspect the field and the contract for the people who are doing the field ends on October 31.

“Ideally in our minds, we have positioned ourselves to use the field as early as November. But based on where we are, we’re very reluctant to say we’re going to have games in November.”

While work on the playing area looks promising, the club is also planning to build a pavilion to house changing rooms for players and match officials.

“After Cup Match, we are hoping to start the construction of a pavilion,” the Stars president said.

“We don’t have the funding in place for everything, but we have some funding in place to make a start. So what we want to do, like in Bermuda, the most important thing is starting right with the foundation.

“Because this is swampy land, we can’t build a two-storey building and there’s a lot of engineering that goes into place with it.

“Once we get the engineering report back, we can start. Engineering tells us what we can do and that will have a big say on how we do the construction of the slab.

“We already have planning permission to do it. It’s just that we can’t get started until we have the engineering report.”

Options are being weighed on sprucing up the old clubhouse to be used before a new building is constructed.

“We have to do major work on the old clubhouse,” Boyles said.

“The roof needs to be repaired. We’re waiting for the same engineering report for that and that comes in at the same time.

“The engineering report for that might say, it’s OK for us to fix the roof and the foundation’s fine but it might come back and say the opposite.

“We’re taking our time to make sure that all the parameters are in place for us to make the best decision as far as the building and renovation of the old one.

“What we can do in the interim is have temporary changing facilities in the form of tents during matches.

“The most important thing for us is having a green top to play on. If we have a green top to play on, people come here, we generate revenue because we’re not renting and then it will be put back into the facility.”

In terms of maintaining the field once the contract ends, Boyles indicated that options are being assessed.

“We have an option of securing the current contractor that’s doing this or we can get another contractor to maintain the field,” he said.

“But what we don’t want to do is make it a volunteer role. It will probably be a part-time job, contracted out whereby a person will come in and they’ll service the field for us.

“That’s the way to go for the first year. In the first year, it’s really important that whatever green top they give us when they move off in October, we want to make sure that we maintain that.”

David Burt, the Premier, recently dropped in to check on the field and after his visit, he gave assurances that the Government would continue to support efforts to ensure the return of football and cricket to the field.

“It was just an update since he’s coming to the end of his tenure,” Boyles said.

“He started the project with us, so he wanted to make sure that the handover was smooth. Before he leaves office, he wanted to find out if there are any concerns that we had about the field because he doesn’t want any issues.”