ST BENEDICT’S College football head coach Randolph Boyce said the coaching staff showed their players past tapes of the school’s illustrious days in an effort to ignite the fire in them for the 2022 season. It seemed to spark the players as St Benedict’s lifted the 2022 Tiger Tanks Secondary Schools Football League premiership division title, on Wednesday.
St Benedict’s defeated Fatima College 3-1 in front of a bumper crowd at Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva. Thousands attended the match as the covered section of the stadium was filled with rhythm sections and flags adding to the electric atmosphere.
Tarik Lee was the star on the day for St Benedict’s scoring a hat-trick.
There is a rich football history at St Benedict’s.
Their team won the South Zone Intercol five times between 1988 and 2000 and were crowned the National Intercol champions in 1998.
Some of the national footballers who attended St Benedict’s College are Warren Archibald, Leroy De Leon, Steve David and Bobby Sookram.
Boyce said the 2022 players were reminded of the school’s football tradition.
He said, “What we do at St Benedict’s College before each season while we having a camp we will gather all the boys and go into the AV room. We will play back videos of the history of the school and the football aspect of it and the amount of titles (we won) and let them see the likes of footballers that passed through and knowing that they have a big shoe to fill.
“This year we did some of that and they know they had to put in the work to be able to match the kind of legends and icons that pass through the school before and I think with this now they will definitely go down in some history.”
Reflecting on what he felt led to the memorable season, Boyce said preparation was key.
“A number of things (would have led to our successful season). We started (preparing) earlier, we went into a couple tournaments before (the season), we played a numerous amount of practice games…we went into a month-long camp.”
Boyce also said St Benedict’s and Ascension club team Cunupia FC signed a memorandum of understanding which allowed the St Benedict’s players to get experience against higher level competition.
Boyce thanked St Benedict’s school principal Gregory Quan Kep for his support.
“I must say thanks to the principal for buying into the philosophy, for supporting every single idea that I went to him with and seeing the vision that the staff had for the team this year and he supported us for every single thing that we required. He gave us 100 per cent support, he was always at every practice game, every game. He deserves this title.”
St Benedict’s were awarded three penalties against Fatima, but only one was converted.
Boyce was glad a few calls went in favour of St Benedict’s.
“In the changing room before the game, I told them when you get the ball don’t turn back because I watched about four or five of the Fatima games and I know that we had the edge on them with speed and the type of players they have defending I knew we would have gotten one or two calls at least.”
SOURCE: T&T Newsday
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