BMOBILE Joe Public’s coach, Derek King and its top goalscorer, Kerry Baptiste, will be honoured on Boxing Day by Earl “Mango” Pierre, president of the T&T Football Players Association of Brooklyn, New York.
King, who steered Joe Public to four titles in the T&T Professional Football League and the FA Trophy championship, along with Baptiste, will receive plaques after the staging of a friendly match between members of the T&T Football Coaches Association and players of T&T Internationals, which is based in Brooklyn.
The match will be played on St Anthony’s grounds in Westmoorings, from 3 pm. King will be appearing on the coaches team while Baptiste has been invited as a guest player on the T&T Internationals squad.
Both are hot favourites to be crowned 2009 “Coach of the Year” and “Footballer of the Year” respectively. Also receiving a plaque will be Trent Noel, who was honoured last year but did not receive his award. He was the 2008 “Footballer of the Year.” T&T Internationals will be under the captaincy of former national defender Brent Sancho.
Some of the other players on the side will be Cornel Glenn, Marvin Oliver, Leslie Fitzpatrick, Steve Sealy, Clint Marcelle, Ricardo Aleong, Shane Pierre, Dean Mapp and Joel Gibbons.
Pierre, who is home for the Christmas holidays, said yesterday that his organisation, T&T Players Association of Brooklyn commemorated 100 years of football in T&T by producing a handout that honoured former Prime Minister Eric Williams, national player and coach Russell Latapy and the legendary Pele.