Football: Chichester’s Amand says AP game was never re-set

Chichester administrators said this week that their varsity football team never was supposed to play Academy Park Monday evening.

In an email to the Daily Times, Paul Amand, director of student activities and athletics at Chichester, said there had not been a mutual agreement on a rescheduling of the game between the teams, which was originally supposed to be played last Friday at Academy Park.

AP had moved that game to Saturday in the wake of a shooting on the night of Aug. 27 outside the main gate of Knights Park near the end of a game with Pennsbury, an incident which resulted in the tragic death of 8-year-old Fanta Bility. The game was initially planned for last Saturday but then was thought to be shifted to a Monday night game at Chi.

This happened after reports of a potential threat on high school grounds late Thursday forced the closure of all Southeast Delco School District buildings the next day. Out of an abundance of caution, the district also shut down all athletic events through last weekend.

Academy Park wanted to play the game Monday night at Chichester, however, Amand said he communicated with Academy Park athletic director and head football coach Jason Vosheski that Chi was not prepared to make the necessary security arrangements to host the game.

“Academy Park attempted to reschedule the game to play at Chichester on Monday, Sept. 28, with (football) assignor Bill Coates. Friday afternoon, I emailed Academy Park and the assignor acknowledging that I do not expect to be able to pull together the resources to play Monday night for several reasons, the primary reason being lack of police presence,” Amand said in the email. “The assignor saw our opposing views of playing on Monday and suggested (we) cancel the game, which I agreed. (Vosheski) was motivated to reschedule the game to Monday and I shared his efforts with our administration, but the bottom line was we could not provide in this short time a level of security to outweigh the threat that canceled the rescheduled game on Saturday at Academy Park. Saturday afternoon, I confirmed my stance with Academy Park that we will not be playing varsity football on Monday night at our field because we could not provide security.”

The possible threat to Academy Park was considered contained by early Friday.

Last week, Vosheski, referencing why the game wasn’t played, simply texted, “(Chichester) didn’t want to play.”

Chichester’s stance didn’t prevent the Academy Park football team’s Twitter account from lashing out at Chichester for their decision to “cancel” a game that apparently wasn’t scheduled to take place Monday. The Twitter account has since been deleted.

As it stands, Chichester administration said it holds no animosity toward its Del Val League counterpart.

“Our decision casts no dispersion on Academy Park High School or its football team,” Amand said. “While people have strong feelings about what could have or should have happened, let’s not (lose sight) that we responded to the same threat as did the host school. We should not be viewed more harshly.”

Due to lack of open dates on both teams’ schedules, the game will not be made up at a later date. Chichester’s neighborhood rival Sun Valley is hosting Academy Park Friday in what will be the Knights’ first game in two weeks.