July 27: Come August 6 and the historical Judges Field will again host sporting events as part of the 102-year-old Gauhati Town Club’s centenary celebration that has been put on hold for the past two-and-a-half years.

Ever since chief minister Tarun Gogoi inaugurated the celebration on January 12, 2006, the club has not been able to observe its centenary year “because of infrastructure and financial constraints”.

The new executive body headed by Guwahati development department minister Himanta Biswa Sarma as the president and senior advocate Devajit Saikia as secretary has resolved to celebrate the historical moment from August.

The new clubhouse will be opened on December 31, 2009.

Elaborating the club’s proposed centenary celebration, Saikia said the programme would kick off on August 6 with a foundation laying of the new clubhouse that would be built at a cost of nearly Rs 1 crore.

“It will be followed by a 19-day inter-club invitation football tournament in Judges Field, beginning August 12, in which eight Guwahati super division teams, four Guwahati first division league teams, Oil India Ltd and hosts Gauhati Town Club will participate. The tournament will have a prize money of Rs 1 lakh,” Saikia said.

The last competitive sporting event held there was a football tournament in 1990.

After Judges Field has been opened exclusively for sporting activities, a few football clubs have started practising there.

Rejecting the earlier design for the clubhouse, the new executive body has proposed a state-of-the-art infrastructure with modern facilities.

The existing clubhouse was built in 1941.

“The multi-storey clubhouse will comprise an auditorium, two dressing rooms for players, a pavilion, players’ quarters with accommodation for 22 players, an indoor hall, a health club with multi-gym, a swimming pool, a garden and an office. Besides, there will be a viewers’ gallery overhead facing Judges Field,” Saikia said.

The club has set April 2009 as the deadline for the first phase of construction of the auditorium, players’ quarters, dressing rooms and the pavilion. By December 31, 2009, construction will be complete.

Saikia said Gogoi had committed Rs 20 lakh for the club while inaugurating the centenary celebration.

“Besides, we propose to move the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority for a share of about Rs 15 lakh as part of the beautification drive of Judges Field and Nehru Park. A chunk of funds will be raised through enrolment of new life members, including donor memberships and corporate memberships,” the secretary said.

The club has at present nearly 70 life members.

The completion of the first phase of the construction will be marked by the opening of a football academy in June next year.

“It will be for about 15 sub-junior players whom we will pick up from different talent pockets, train them under a foreign coach tentatively from Thailand and provide them free accommodation, food and education,” Saikia said.

Asked if the club was going to move the government for re-acquiring Judges Field that belonged to the club in the past for its exclusive use, Saikia said it would not do so “in the greater interest of sport in the city which has very few playgrounds”.

He, however, said the club might, in the future, go for developing a ground of its own in North Guwahati where its adviser Radha Bora was offering a plot of land.

“We are waiting for the proposed ropeway to be completed over the Brahmaputra after which it would take barely seven minutes to cross the river,” Saikia said.