Captain Chuggy Claims CI Sports Personality Crown

CI Sports Awards Picture: Peter Frankland

Charles ‘Chuggy’ Perchard enjoyed a landslide victory to claim the Channel Islands Sports Personality of the Year award for 2021. Our men’s cricket captain received 61% of the public vote to fend off the challenge of three Sarnians at Beau Sejour in Guernsey.

Perchard, who guided the men’s national side to a best-ever result in the European qualifiers for the 2022 T20 World Cup – finishing the tournament as the leading wicket-taker – beat professional footballers Alex Scott and Maya Le Tissier and Olympic Games track athlete Cameron Chalmers to the top gong, to follow in the footsteps of team-mate Jonty Jenner, who won the leading prize in 2015.

The men’s squad claimed the Team of the Year award for their efforts at that World Cup qualifying tournament in Spain last October, where they claimed six wins from six, although head coach, Neil MacRae, was beaten to the Coach of the Year award by Jersey Bulls manager Gary Freeman.

On speaking about the victory and a factor behind Jersey’s success, Perchard stated, ‘it’s all a bit surreal to have been nominated against an olympic track athlete and a pair of professional footballers’.

‘Whenever we go away there are a huge number of ‘ultras’ who travel to support the side. We always feel the following from home when we’re away, and in Spain it was something the players could feel with every win earned’.

‘I do think the manner in which we came through the qualifiers unbeaten has changed our mindset. The goal from the start was to play in a World Cup. We have stage one ticked and now we move on to the Global Qualifiers in Zimbabwe where the competition steps up again’.

Credit: Jersey Evening Post