There is good, bad and ugly in footballers' parents lashing out at national under-17 coach Anton Corneal.
On the other hand, it can be argued that the parents who spoke on condition of anonymity to sportswriter Lasana Liburd, as outlined in these pages yesterday, are not acting responsibly at all and are being both irrational and myopic in creating the impression, purely on the basis of what their sons said to them, that they were belittled instead of encouraged by the technical staff in Tijuana, especially after enduring a 7-0 mauling from the hosts in the opening game.
Where this thing gets ugly, however, is that now that what was obviously a very unhappy situation has entered the public domain, fundamental issues will be swamped by a tide of claims and counter-claims as each aggrieved party seeks to present his or her side of the story.
These attacks almost inevitably descend to the personal level and draw in those with axes to grind on either side of the fence.
Concerns about tactics, preparedness, fitness and discipline will be overlooked while parents rally to the defence of their own flesh and blood. In response, the officials under fire will dispense with the usual niceties and generalisations that follow any campaign, and feeling either threatened or insulted, or both, will reveal more than they probably should because it appears patently unfair when they are being portrayed by grumbling parents, who can hardly be described as impartial, as the bad guys of this sorry tale.
Ask anyone around you this morning who read yesterday's story for a reaction and there's every likelihood you'll get a very strong response one way or the other. Those who have had to cope with meddling, overbearing parents in any capacity will talk about how it is almost impossible to get anything done without some irate father or mother screaming victimisation while portraying their rude, spoilt, ill-mannered offspring as the sort of angel of whom everyone else, especially other parents, is jealous.
If you're sounding out parents who can identify with yesterday's complainants, prepare for a deluge of stories about so-and-so sportsmaster or coach or music teacher or lessons giver who is a law unto himself, who has it in for certain children while kissing up to others, and who is the number one reason why such-and-such child, who was destined for greatness, was frustrated into giving up the pastime that he or she loved so much.
At the end of the day, nobody wins when things get so personal. The problem, however, is that when it comes to football, here as almost anywhere else on the planet, personality clashes at all levels are expected. It's just that occasions like this open your eyes to new avenues of conflict and further explain why a comprehensive national football programme is well nigh impossible.
Thanks to Lasana's piece, I now know of the friction between Anton Corneal and Terry Fenwick. If anyone kept a record of coaches at war with each other in the local environment alone over the years, they would have more than enough material to fill an entire filing cabinet. So this is nothing new, although it now means that the record-keeper of such disputes will have to open up a new folder on this one.
Call it jealousy or call it unwarranted favouritism, but there prevails in local football an undercurrent of resentment towards the role and influence of former national player and coach Alvin Corneal and his progeny on the local football scene. Nobody that I'm aware of talks about it publicly, because they don't want to be seen as being either envious or vindictive, yet anyone who knows anything about football knows about it.
Look, I don't hang around the game really and I know about it.
So does this latest broadside have anything to do with that anti-Corneal sentiment? Maybe it does, and my suggesting as much means that I am now categorised in the pro-Corneal faction. Hopefully there's a free jersey that goes along with it.
Even if it would have done nothing to curb the enthusiasm of those intent on, as they would see it, bussing the mark on Corneal and the other favoured honchos, surely it is not unreasonable to expect that a proper post-tournament analysis of the national team's performances in Mexico would have been conducted already as a matter of course.
Until we get to the level of frank, honest performance appraisals that allow all interested parties to have a voice, yet are conducted in an orderly fashion by respected personalities within or outside the game, there will always be some disgruntled soul ready to tell it all under the cover of anonymity to the media.
Whether the issue is the banning of Ipods or players who are made to believe they are much better than they really are, there needs to be integrity in the process for football here to climb out of the morass of pettiness in which it suffocates.
But wait. Integrity? In T&T?
Sorry, sometimes I forget where I am.