PANJIM: The long awaited football ground project of St Anthony High School, Monte de Guirim and Monte de Guirim Past Pupils Association finally took off with the ground breaking ceremony held on Sunday
Fr. Domingo Ferrao, Principal and Head Master of St. Anthony High School blessed the construction machinery and implements and then all assisted in symbolically installing the corner post of the ground boundary fence.
Earlier in his address, Fr. Domingo highlighted the roll this iconic football ground has played in the lives of so many students in the 75 years old history of the school and the objective of the present project to give the future generations of students the best of football playing conditions.
In its heydays Monte was the nursery of football in Goa, which churned out footballers of the calibre of Arnold Rodrigues, Bruno Coutinho, Alex Alvares, Salvador Fernandes, Jerome Nogueira, Baptist Fernandes, John Franco, Stanley Colaco and Bibiano Fernandes etc.
To bring back the glory days, the Monte de Guirm Past Pupils stepped up and undertook this prestigious project to give their Alma Maters a state of the art football ground, with well graded surface, irrigation system, sub-surface and peripheral drainage, sand based natural turf, dressing rooms and administration room.
This project is uniquely crowd funded by the Past Pupils and philanthropic well-wishers of St Anthony High School, Monte de Guirim.
Jayesh Salgaonkar, MLA of Saligao Constituency, Rima Gadekar, Sarpanch of Guirim, Avinash Naik, Sarpanch of Sangolda, Santosh Bandodkar, Sarpanch of Pilerne-Marra, Former Provincial Fr. Steve Rodrigues, Guirim Sangolda Parish Priest Fr. Anand Pais and a host of ex-students, friars and well wishers of the school were present at the function.
Local MLA Jayesh Salgaonkar assured his full personal support for the successful completion of the project.
