President devastated as Giants withdraw

Giants Softball Club president Allan Clarke is "absolutely gutted" at the club having to withdraw their premier men's team from both the Hutt Valley and Inter-City competitions for the 2010-11 season.

Clarke, who founded the Giants club 45 years ago and has held practically every administrative position in the interim, said a shortage of players willing and able to compete at the highest levels had left the club with little alternative but to pull the plug on their flagship side.

"It's absolutely gutting, the very last thing we wanted to do," Clarke said in admitting he was disappointed at the attitude of some of the younger players in last season's squad who had left Giants to join other clubs.

"I said to someone the other day 'if you want loyalty, then best get a dog' ... and I still hold to that."

Compounding the difficulty of the situation for Giants - who had been part of the Hutt Valley competition for the past 14 years - was by the time the withdrawal decision was made, two Canadian players recruited to boost their premier one men's side had already arrived in Masterton.

They had been encouraged to make the trip by Allan's son Ritchie Clarke, who has been the star pitcher for Giants over many seasons but who is now living in Canada.

"It was very hard to tell these young guys that we wouldn't be fielding a side, that they would have to play for someone else."

Fortunately, however, finding a new club did not prove difficult and the Canadians will be turning out for Hutt Valley-based Dodgers, while two mainstays of last season's line-up who were planning to stay with Giants, Blair Thompson and Nathan Shannahan, have gone to top Wellington club, Miramar.

The loss of their premier men's team does not, however, mean the end of Giants as an entity - nothing like it, in fact.

Allan Clarke is at pains to emphasise that the club will still be fielding teams in the Hutt Valley under-18 men's, under-15 boys, under-13 mixed, major B women's and President men's grades, and every endeavour will be made to ensure their premier men's side is back in 2012-13.

"We've faced some pretty big obstacles in the past and this is just another challenge we have to get through," he said.

"We're still very much committed to having our men's team back in the top grades. What's happened now is a hiccup, nothing more than that."