Former national captain Clayton Morris has joined forces with St. Ann’s-based club Superstar Rangers as Director of Youth Programmes, and will assist Head coach Anthony Streete when required.
This was confirmed by club chairman Richard Fakoory, who added that former football referee Richard Piper is also the new manager at the club.
“They both are on board officially and they both have started working already,” said Fakoory.
“We started our training on Wednesday, and Clayton starts his training with the youths this weekend, having already accumulated his group of youngsters and his assistant coaches.”
Fakoory said Morris has an attachment to the club since he was a part of Rangers in his earlier days.
“Clayton is one of the original figures of Superstar Rangers, he grew up in St. Ann’s. He played at President’s Grounds and over the years he wanted to give back to his community and his family. He is excited and delighted about wanting to take us to another level, and I know our youngsters would all be looking forward to work with such a local icon.”
Morris captained Trinidad and Tobago’s Strike Squad which narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 1990 World Cup in Italy, following their 1-0 loss to the USA in the CONCACAF qualifier at the then National Stadium, Port-of-Spain.
Regarding Piper’s appointment as manager, Fakoory said the former football referee finally decided to make the decision following several discussions in the past.
“Piper is a professional in what he does, and I have been a friend of Piper for over 20 years.
“He has been an established referee and we have always been in talks for him to come on board. When I spoke to him in early January 2007, he finally said he was ready for it and knew he had to call it quits as a referee.”
Fakoory also had words of praise for Piper whom he said had the qualifications to do the best job possible in taking the club forward.
“He is going to take a lot of pressure off the Board of Directors which mainly comprises Alan Cabral, Kirk De Freitas and me. Piper is going to oversee the whole of Rangers’ programme. We are going to form an academy this year and take care of the youngsters.”
“From last year’s performance and the few resources that we had, and what we accomplished, I am hoping that both Piper and Morris would take us to bigger and batter things in 2007,” ended the Rangers chairman.
Superstar Rangers enjoyed a decent run in the very first season in the TT Pro League, finishing 6th on the 2006 league standings, while also made it all the way to the Toyota Classic final, where they were beaten by United Petrotin.