Treat them right

At this stage, I have no reason to doubt that his words to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation's membership on Sunday were sincere.

Said he: "This is the time for restoration.

This is the time when all hands are needed on deck and none must be left behind.

This is the time when as lovers of the beautiful game we need to stand together and mend the breeches, which have been broken.

These are serious times, in which we live, not for the faint and timid but for those who dare to be strong and those who dare to be brave."

Heavy on clichés, the new president's words nevertheless had a poetic ring. Perhaps, in another place Tim Kee may have found work as a speech writer for Barack Obama.

Whether those words also carry substance will be seen in the months ahead. For the sake of local football's forgotten foot-soldiers, I hope they do.

Hutson Charles and Ross Russell, army men by profession, have also been soldiers in the cause of national football for all their adult lives.

Russell, a beanpole of a goalkeeper for the old Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive in the old Colleges Football League, has come through the ranks of age-group representative football, playing for some of those exciting T&T youth teams of the 1980s, before moving on to the senior team and then into coaching at club level with Defence Force and national Under-17 and now Under-20 level.

Charles' career with the senior team is also well-documented.

For me, the names Hutson Charles and Strike Squad will always go together.

In one of football's most memorable eras, "Barber" was one of the engines of Everald "Gally" Cummings' unit. Russell Latapy, Leonson Lewis and Dwight Yorke brought the pizzazz; Charles and others brought the heart and the drive.

Because of that sweet-bitter "Road To Italy" in 1989, "Barber" knows what it means to build from the bottom. He needs that knowledge now. Asked for the moment to be coach of the senior team at national football's lowest point, he finds himself faced with a restoration job far more difficult than the one undertaken by his old coach "Gally" 23 years ago.

It is a time of great lack in the game—of money, unity of purpose, just name it. Technical director Anton Corneal we are told, is selling lettuce to earn a dollar. Like him, Charles, Russell, and coaches, staff and players at all levels of the national setup are operating on promises and a sense of commitment. They are unsung, unheralded, underappreciated.

But when eventually—and that must always be the hope—standards improve, it will be in part because of the struggles that men such as these are putting up at present.

It may very well be that the current trench dwellers will not be the ones to win the big victories when they do come again. But if it were not for their persistence now, there would be no future to hope in.

That is why, of all the people president Tim Kee reaches out to, the ones he needs to "stand together" with most of all, are the men taking the jamming now. Instead of looking for fresh faces because results are bad; he must address why results are bad at all levels.

Tim Kee and his administration must listen when Charles speaks of his Caribbean Cup qualifying quandary:

"What sense is it if we cannot have our players available to us at least one week before a major tournament. There have been calls that we utilise the local-based players and when we are doing that, it's still difficult to get players for our preparations...

"When our competing teams are unable to train and be together for longer we have to be very concerned about that. It's no longer a situation where we can just feel our players are naturally better and will go there and win these games easily. The game has changed."

Russell, still hurting from his side's exit at the first stage of CFU Under-20 qualifying, has a similar complaint.

"We thought that even with all the struggles that we faced, that we could come together three weeks before this tournament and get through but when I heard what the other teams had in their preparation, I knew we would be in some problems. I am sure people will be asking how our national team could lose to Curacao but we have to face up to the facts...

"In T&T, if we are really concerned about our football and we want to go forward then there needs to be more cooperation among the Leagues, the clubs and the Federation. I am also a club coach and I would like to try and help the other coaches realise the importance (of this)...

"We have to admit to ourselves that the preparation physically and mentally of our players at the club and school level is not sufficient for us to think that they can just come into a national team and excel. That may have been the case long ago because of the natural ability of our players back then and then the lower level of our opponents. But evidently this is no longer the case.

"Inside one month before a tournament of this calibre, we still had to be worrying about getting access to players playing in the Schools League. When we get the players for training, there's not much that (can) be done during the sessions because we have to be wary about how much work they are already putting in while playing for the clubs or schools prior to a tournament like this."

Hardly new stories these, but still very relevant ones.

Well Mr president, I hope you are listening. If you really want to be a successful General, you better pay heed to your ground troops.

And treat them right.