Like most Bermudians, I have been following the progress of our national team cricketers with keen interest ever since they qualified for the World Cup.

To even make it that far was a tremendous achievement.

At one stage I was seriously thinking about travelling down to Trinidad to watch the boys in action, but my commitments with the Bermuda Hogges has not made this possible.

I was in the same year as both Dean Minors and Clay Smith at Whitney Institute, and all three of us grew up together playing both football and cricket. Both Dean and Clay were good footballers, but decided to concentrate more on cricket when we became teenagers while I obviously went in the opposite direction.

I enjoyed my cricket as a youngster and was a decent all-rounder at high school, while I used to like going down to Devonshire Rec. on the weekends to watch the club games.

Like all of Bermuda, I want to wish the team the very best of luck down in Trinidad when they take on Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Nobody is expecting them to win those games, but as long as they give it their all and do their talent justice, then that’s all we can ask for.

I heard about Michael Holding’s recent comments, that teams like Bermuda shouldn’t be allowed to compete in the World Cup.

I guess I can see his point about the tournament going on for a very long time and the likelihood that there might be a high number of one-sided games in the early stages of the tournament.

But when push comes to shove, teams like Bermuda have got there because they met the qualification requirements. Perhaps if he had made a lot of noise about the new regulations before they qualified it would be one thing, but making those kinds of arguments now is pointless.

The best way for Bermuda to show they do belong at the World Cup is to surprise a few of the big teams by putting up a decent fight. I sincerely hope that they can do just that.

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Turning back to football, Kyle Lightbourne, Paul Scope and myself have been busy over the past few weeks putting together the backroom staff we require for the Hogges.

In total we expect to boast a staff of between 20 and 25 people — most of whom will be volunteers. That might sound like a very large number, but in this new era of professionalism, it is absolutely necessary.

There are a huge number of responsibilities involved in running a pro team, and the three of us cannot deal with all of it ourselves. If we tried to, we wouldn’t be putting the necessary energy into the team and the football.

There’s still a few positions yet to be finalised, but to give you a flavour of what I’m talking about, here are a few examples of people we’ve brought on board:

We’ve employed a nutritionist by the name of Arlene Andrews who will be working with the players on all aspects of their diet, ensuring they are eating the right foods as part of a comprehensive fitness programme we are putting together.

We’ve brought in a school relations officer in the shape of Rosemary Lightbourne, who will be in charge of liasing with all local schools when it comes to Hogges activities. We’ve got some exciting plans in that area which we’ll be unveiling in due course.

Elsewhere we’ve got Craig Tyrell as our game day operations manager who will be in charge of pre-game entertainment for kids and parents while Brian Iris will be in charge of player registration and payroll. Between Kyle, Brian, Paul and I, we’ll also all be enforcing mandatory drug testing.

Kendaree Burgess-Fairn will be our public relations officer, Gary Ray will be our equipment manager, Molly Cordeiro will handle the marketing and Margaret Heyliger will be the liaison for all teams that visit the Island for competitive matches.

There will be many others involved at one stage or another, from physiotherapists to people just helping out on match days. But I hope this goes to show you how serious we are about turning the Hogges into a first-class organisation.

And hopefully, when you realise how serious we are, then you, the public, will come out and support us and the team over the summer as we set off on this new adventure.

Watch this space as we notify you in the next couple of weeks about season-ticket prices.