The recent issues emanating from sport in this country were not leading towards a direction which left us with an exciting expectancy.
From Lifesport to the decisive day when Ecuador defeated our Women’s Soca Warriors left us all in limbo as to what we can expect in the future. However, to people like myself who have the habit of showing appreciation for outstanding service in sport, I was very pleased and elated to have seen that the former men’s national football and women’s hockey coach Bertille St. Clair was eventually awarded for his contribution to sport in this country, and I refer to both T&T.
What a deserving award to a man whose life has been dedicated to working feverishly to bring our young people towards a competitive standard both on the field and in the classroom.
I happen to be a lucky person who was able to recognize and appreciate the tremendous job St Clair had done, from his early days as a cricket and football coach in the schools system, through to the women’s hockey team, then on his successful jaunt as the first national coach to have qualified for the FIFA Junior World Cup in Portugal in 1991.
Having been one of the successful coaches who learnt his coaching philosophies from the famous Technical Director of England Charles Hughes, St Clair kicked off his career as a football coach by starting his own coaching school, coaching at Signal Hill for many years until he was called to our national youth program as coach. He also had stints with our national senior team, and despite his good efforts, the hierarchy, in their normal style, decided that a foreigner was better to take an already prepared squad to Germany in 2006.
The result is now history and when all the stakeholders walked away with one million dollars, poor St Clair was made to go in search of his portion. Time will tell us when or if any was paid to him.
I suppose that the Olympic committee gave him the Alexander B. Chapman award for his services to women’s hockey, seeing that the general secretary was a national player under his guidance.
Congratulations, Bertille St. Clair, I am proud of your contribution to sport in T&T, especially with the young people who have benefitted from your fatherly guidance and persuasive manner of teaching.
It was easy to recall the actions and reactions of some of the so called sports gurus across the world, most of whom are idolized by the sports fans. After watching two exciting cricket test matches between India and Australia, where truly superb, batting, bowling, and to a lesser extend fielding were established, out came the age old habit of sledging by the Australians, which was followed by some awkward incidents, including players throwing the ball towards the wicket when the batsmen were well in the crease.
Thanks to the person who controlled the audio during play, as we were saved from what some lip movements indicated language that we hear from people whose vocabularies were sadly lacking.
And across to the Barclays English Premier League to listen to the hugely popular Chelsea Manager Jose Mourinho accusing a referee of being against his team simply because the referee adjudged a decision which the Portuguese felt was a penalty.
Now, that was child stuff, especially as these referees make mistakes very often and with different teams. Maybe he should have asked his players why they missed the goals which were not obstructed by the referee or even the opponents.
These high profile managers in world football, do not often act in keeping with the image they portray and it is a pity that we all have to sit by and salute their team’s efforts despite their behavior. Now we can look into the crystal ball in order to find out whether our under prepared Under-20 squad will take our country towards the FIFA finals in New Zealand later in the year.
The entire selection process of these youth teams does not possess a method which will bring the best players to these national teams. The belief is that it is only the players who are attached to the pro leagues and maybe the super league are good enough to be considered.
Sometimes victory brings false beliefs as we have seen when both the U-20 and U-17 teams qualified in the preliminary rounds. This was admitted by some members of the coaching staff and only time will tell the fans whether or not the policies for selection worked to their benefit.
I wish the team good luck and best wishes as I do to every national team that represents our country. And may I take this opportunity to wish all sports fans peace, love and blessings from the good Lord for the New Year. We have a beautiful country and I hope that our people will help to keep it that way.