SPORTS AND Games FC Santa Rosa, the current leaders of the National Super League Premiership Division, celebrated their 24th year of existence on Monday.
President of the club Keith Look Loy, in a recent interview, spoke of the genesis of the Arima- based club, “September 19th 1992, which is the year we carry on our logo – ’92.
“The club was actually started by myself in Arima with some boys in Arima and some family friends,” Look Loy reminisced.
“It was frankly the idea of my wife (Kathy Ann) because we had a son who was seven years old and I said ‘let me create something for him to play football’ and the club started.” For nearly two decades, FC Santa Rosa were involved in youth football tournaments, under the auspices of the Eastern Football Association (EFA), as well as national youth events, including the Republic Bank Youth Cup.
Look Loy pointed out, “in 2010, we started the men’s team because we won the TTFA National Under-17 and we were tired of exporting our players to (the top clubs).” Using a nucleus of players who had developed at the club over the years, FC Santa Rosa won the EFA Second Division crown in 2010 and the EFA Premier Division in 2011, following which they earned promotion to the 2012 National Super League, where they have played ever since.
“We took a long time to graduate to men’s football,” said Look Loy, who also serves as coach of the men’s team.
As far as the challenges in running the Club is concerned, Look Loy stated, “right now, and for many, many years, in our youth section we have 130-140 children.
Over time we’ve had a few girls but we’ve never had a girls’ team. We start at age six and go up until age 16.” But he admitted, “to run (the Club) without major sponsorship is a very real headache.” He is grateful to volunteers, as well as the parents of the children enrolled at the Club, for their assistance. Look Loy also relies on the monies earned from fund-raising events.
The men’s team recently formed a partnership with local sporting goods store Sports and Games, while they also get funding from Blue Waters, Malta Carib, Toyota Trinidad Limited and the Ministry of Sport.
“It hasn’t made life a bed of roses but it’s a little easier to manage,” Look Loy said.
The Club has seen a number of players progress to the Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL), the collegiate circuit in the United States and even the national youth teams, including the Rochford brothers Jean-Luc and John- Paul, Duane Muckette and Christopher Durity.
He pointed out, “we feel we have made our little contribution to the lives of many children in the Arima area, over that time.” Looking to the future, Look Loy noted, “we have always been a Club who wants to do things professionally.
Now that we’ve come in to men’s football, we’re very ambitious.
This year we’re having our best season, we’ve won nothing but we’ve been on top of the League for many weeks now. We want to grow and we want to get big.” He admitted that the Club is not too keen to compete in the TT Pro League. “That’s a huge multi-million dollar expenditure and I really don’t know what the returns are,” Look Loy said.
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