Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor

Chris Bicknell... deputy chairman of Arnett Gardens Football Club. - File

BEGINNING Sunday with the game against Portmore United, spectators attending games involving Arnett Gardens Football Club in the Cash Plus Premier League (CPPL) at their home ground have been given a freebie for the remainder of the season as yesterday the club's top executives decided to kick admission costs out the gate.

"The chairman, Dr. Omar Davies, and myself, have decided to open the gates for the rest of the season in an effort to bring the community together at the sports complex ... with the hope to generate interest and bring the spirit back behind the team and the club and build back the support base," Chris Bicknell, the club's deputy chairman, told The Gleaner yesterday."It's to offer the community free entry into the complex with their family, to come and spend recreation time. There are various areas in Arnett Gardens, so it's really to bring them back together."

Largest fan base

This is not the first time that the club is offering patrons a free run this season, as they extended that courtesy to supporters for the first three home matches.

For other matches hosted at its Anthony Spaulding Sports Complex home ground this season, however, the admission cost per person was $300.

Arnett has one of the largest fan base in the league, but much of that support waned during the past four years when the community was torn apart by internal violence which claimed many lives.

"With the recent tension in the various communities around Arnett Gardens, the team faltering and the sponsorship waning, we felt that it would be a win-win situation by opening the gates, which will go towards solving each of those problems," Bicknell pointed out. "We saw it as producing positive results from a community standpoint, a club standpoint and from a sponsorship standpoint."

He added: "There are three and a half months left in the season, so we figure we're probably giving up just over a million dollars of gate receipts."

Since the major violence ended, this is the first season where the marquee club that won two titles in recent years is enjoying any real support from its community. However, the numbers have remained low, costs appear a bit prohibitive and the team was performing well below expectations, to the point where they occupied a spot in the relegation zone.

Absent stars

While that was happening a number of its leading players, including many-time scoring leaders Kevin Wilson, Kwame Richardson and Leon Strickland were absent from matches.

Wilson withdrew from some, while Richardson and Strickland were training with other premier league outfits. They've since returned, but another striker, Marcelino Blackburn, left for Harbour View.

The club recently replaced coach Max Straw with Jerome Waite, the man who led them to their recent title successes. They have taken seven points from their last three fixtures to climb to 10th in the 12-team league on 22 points.

"A couple of the players who wanted to leave don't want to leave anymore," the chairman admitted. "The turnaround has started and, hopefully, the trend will continue."