Primus, Creed, Archer join Can Bou Play

CBP, a men­tor and ed­u­ca­tion or­gan­i­sa­tion that was found­ed by T&T pro­fes­sion­al foot­ballers, was an ob­vi­ous fit for the young trio who were each keen to get in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and phil­an­thropy.

“I was so glad to see a group like this be­ing es­tab­lished in T&T,” said 22-year-old Creed. “I was en­cour­aged to see foot­ballers do­ing their part to make our coun­try a bet­ter place through men­tor­ship. I had al­so looked up to some of the founders while I was mak­ing my own jour­ney as a young foot­baller, so I was ho­n­oured to come on board and as­sist wher­ev­er I can."

Creed’s for­mer na­tion­al Un­der-17 and U-20 team-mate Archer, echoed his com­ments and was quick to of­fer his ser­vices to the CBP mis­sion.

“I knew that [CBP] were do­ing the right things by go­ing in­to com­mu­ni­ties and start­ing this foot­ball ini­tia­tive with some of the kids that don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly have the ac­cess to it. Ob­vi­ous­ly, I want­ed to be a part of that as it’s giv­ing back to the com­mu­ni­ty,” said Archer.

“The first vis­it I did with Can Bou Play was re­al­ly an eye-open­er in how joy is brought to these kids through foot­ball. I en­joyed it.”

Archer is cur­rent­ly in his sec­ond year at USL club Charleston Bat­tery af­ter star­ring as a tow­er­ing de­fend­er at the Col­lege of Charleston and was re­cent­ly not­ed as be­ing on the na­tion­al se­nior team coach Den­nis Lawrence’s radar.

While he can count on the ad­vice of ace T&T at­tack­ing mid­field­er and Bat­tery team­mate Ataulla Guer­ra, he is al­so grate­ful for the tute­lage from the CBP founders dur­ing off­sea­son train­ing ses­sions.

“It was a good ex­pe­ri­ence learn­ing from those 'fel­las' like Yohance, Julius and al­so Georgie,” said Archer. "The kind of ex­pe­ri­ence that those 'fel­las' have is al­ways good. You’re al­ways learn­ing in foot­ball. So it was a great op­por­tu­ni­ty train­ing with them."

At 28-years-old, Primus is the el­der states­man of the trio hav­ing played along­side Can Bou Play founder Sean de Sil­va in the T&T na­tion­al Un­der-17 and Un­der-20 FI­FA Youth World Cup teams in 2007 and 2009.

This year, Primus, who had stints in Eu­rope, will take his foot­ball jour­ney to Asia af­ter he signed with Min­er­va Pun­jab FC in In­dia’s I-League.

Min­er­va Pun­jab FC is cur­rent­ly in prepa­ra­tions for the group stage of the Asian Foot­ball Con­fed­er­a­tion Cup.

It’s def­i­nite­ly a com­plete­ly new ex­pe­ri­ence for the well-trav­elled de­fend­er but one in which he hopes he can use to in­spire the next gen­er­a­tion.

“Know­ing that you are still play­ing and be­ing able to in­spire the younger ones is very pow­er­ful,” said Primus. “It’s re­al­ly in­spir­ing to me.”

“I think we have the right minds, the right se­nior play­ers like Yohance, Ke­ston George, Akim Arm­strong, etc.”

“This group of fel­las here can re­al­ly go a long way and de­vel­op a lot of kids in the right di­rec­tions. I be­lieve we re­al­ly have a strong bunch here to re­al­ly push the Can Bou Play Foun­da­tion.”

While many of the founders and new mem­bers ex­plore their foot­ball as­pi­ra­tions abroad, Creed will take up the role of Ed­u­ca­tion Man­ag­er with­in the Can Bou Play frame­work.

Creed, who re­cent­ly grad­u­at­ed with a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Civ­il En­gi­neer­ing, tu­tors CSEC and CAPE Math­e­mat­ics and Physics while he as­sess­es his play­ing op­tions af­ter help­ing Po­lice FC to a fourth-place fin­ish in the T&T Pro League last sea­son.

His new man­date will see him col­lab­o­rate with oth­er ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers to in­cor­po­rate sub­tle aca­d­e­m­ic learn­ing ex­er­cis­es in­to men­tor­ship sem­i­nars and train­ing ses­sions.