Ex-Liverpool goalie for T&T Charity Cup

The 38-year-old Kirk­land, who ex­celled be­tween the sticks for Eng­land, Liv­er­pool, Wigan Ath­let­ic, Sheffield Wednes­day and Coven­try City in an 18-year ca­reer, will line up for Can Bou Play Unit­ed in the Char­i­ty Cup, which will fea­ture three teams play­ing 45-minute match­es.

Can Bou Play Founder Yohance Mar­shall will take the reins of host team Can Bou Play Unit­ed, while for­mer T&T se­nior team and cur­rent Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers as­sis­tant coach Derek King will com­mand the T&T Stars out­fit.

De­porti­vo Pt Fortin will be the fi­nal team in the Cup and will be led by for­mer T&T cap­tain Reynold Car­ring­ton.

Can Bou Play Foun­da­tion CEO Amiel Mo­hammed said he was elat­ed to an­nounce Kirk­land’s in­volve­ment af­ter months of hard work to put every­thing in place.

“Chris (Kirk­land) is a mon­u­men­tal piece of the puz­zle that we have been de­vel­op­ing since Can Bou Play has start­ed,” Mo­hammed said.

“He runs his goal­keep­ing acad­e­my and is a men­tal health ad­vo­cate and giv­en that we re­cent­ly launched our Sport In Mind – Men­tal Health Pro­gramme, he was the ab­solute per­fect fit to have in­volved in the Char­i­ty Cup and the goal­keep­er camp.”

Hav­ing had his chal­lenges with men­tal health to­wards the lat­ter part of his ca­reer, Kirk­land has be­come an out­spo­ken ad­vo­cate for men­tal health aware­ness and the rel­e­vance of it with­in the sport­ing land­scape.

He is al­so a founder of YA­PA— a so­cial net­work app for men­tal health.

The goal­keep­er camp will al­so be head­lined by an amaz­ing list of for­mer and cur­rent T&T goal­keep­ers such as Jan-Michael Williams, Kimi­ka Forbes, Clay­ton Ince and Javon Sam­ple.

The venues for the Char­i­ty Cup and goal­keep­er camp will be an­nounced this week and ros­ter an­nounce­ments for all teams will be done dai­ly through Can Bou Play’s so­cial me­dia pages lead­ing up to the tour­na­ment.

Pro­ceeds from the Cream­ery Nov­el­ties Forty5 Char­i­ty Cup will serve as in­come gen­er­a­tion for Can Bou Play to op­er­ate its so­cial pro­grammes in 2020, among them Sport In Mind, Mis­sion In­clu­sion vis­its to schools for the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled chil­dren and men­tor­ship sem­i­nars in com­mu­ni­ties, as well as pro­vid­ing Christ­mas treats for the un­der­priv­i­leged