Fatima College have parted ways with coach Hutson Charles.
A day after Fatima were beaten 2-0 in the National InterCol final by St Benedict’s College, Charles and his assistant Russell Sutton were relieved of their duties.
This was confirmed by Charles yesterday.
Charles said he was not given a reason for his dismissal but that, “as usual, they thanked me for all the hard work, all the trophies that were won within my time.”
After taking over the first team in 2019, Charles led Fatima back to the Premier Division from the Championship. And after having to wait for two years to play at the top level of secondary schools football because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Charles guided Fatima to the North Zone and National InterCol titles in 2022 and the Premier Division crown in 2023.
This season however, despite winning North Zone InterCol again, Fatima were second best to St Benedict’s in both the national league and knockout competitions.
Charles said he was “a bit surprised but not shocked” by his firing. But he said he was satisfied with what his players had done during the season after the loss of several first-team members from last season who went abroad and on scholarships.
“The guys that we brought in (from the under-16s) were talented. The experience we had at the back, together with these young, exciting players, I had all the confidence in them that we could have done the (clean) sweep (of titles).”
However, he pointed to back-to-back games against St Benedict’s and St Anthony’s College during the league campaign that changed the league season for Fatima.
“We lost some games that I thought we gave away,” said Charles. “The mistakes that we made, the teams capitalised and punished us. I think that was where the turning point was.”
SOURCE: T&T Express
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