TOP STORY: Chairman delivers Kerr rebuke

ANENDRA SINGH
Central Soccer Hawke's Bay chairman Phil Holt has delivered a rebuke to administrator Gary Kerr for interfering with the Hawke's Bay Knockout Cup semifinal draw.
In an email sent to soccer officials and clubs on Wednesday morning, Holt said Kerr, as the regional administrator for Gisborne and Hawke's Bay, implements the policy guidelines the Central Soccer Board sets down and runs the competitions according to the two regions' rules.
"With respect to this year's semifinal draw, Gary should not have pre-drawn them and when I found out last Thursday (August 25) I sent him an email to that effect.
"Where I went wrong then was to not ask him to advise all the teams concerned that the draw would be made after we had the results on Saturday (August 27). His sentiments for doing the draw can't be questioned. He wanted to give teams enough time to organise time off work if it was necessary," Holt says in the email.
There was widespread discontentment among clubs early this week when they found out Holt had got Marewa White club member Lindsay Sheppard to draw the names of the semifinalists out of a hat after Kerr had already advertised the playing order of the qualifiers several weeks before on Central Soccer's official website and on the draws page of Hawke's Bay Today on Wednesday last week.
Three of the semifinalists - Bluewater Marist, Jupiters Maycenvale and Starfood Port Hill - bemoaned Holt's action in terms of fairness and inconvenience caused to families and employers. They also raised concerns about who really is running soccer in the region.
In his email on Wednesday, Holt said that previously a "men's committee" did the draws for the cup but in recent years former Marist player and HBFA (Hawke's Bay Football Association) committee member Dot Janssen and Eskview Red player Paul Lees did them.
"(The) reason is they work at the same place as I do and are football people. Numbers have been allocated to each team and then those numbers have been put in a bag and pulled out. First team out is the home team."
Holt did not see the need to apologise for employing his method of doing the draw "because that was always the way it was going to be done".
However, he had not considered the effect his action would have on the teams who had already organised their families and employment obligations around Kerr's draws.
"I will certainly apologise for the inconvenience it has caused those people who have got the best interest of the game at heart. For those who are in it for their own egos, you will be found out," Holt said.
An executive/management committee of HBFA/SHB over the years set competition rules and that body was still in place, he added.
That board comprises women's representative, Jennie MacDonald, junior representative Terry Huffam, referees' advocate Tony Simmonds and Bay reps/juniors delegate Craig Barkle, and men's rep Holt.