........ Maxg i take a Little offence to what is being projected about the Army in your Post,which jobs in T&T paying better than the Army?do you know you got to have passes to get in the now?are you saying that the Army picks up the less educated?It's not all about not having to salute.
Check the history of this team and you will observe there is no team to rival their achievements past or present,every tournament,league,local or foreign they have won at some time,the amount of international players they have produced starting from Lincoln Phillips,Kelvin Berassa,Gerry Browne etc etc days,did you know Jason Scotland,Denis Lawrence,Kevin Jeffreys,Mc Farlane etc etc came from that same Army?
The Army have always been involved in the development of Youth players in the country because they was always looked upon to do so,if you look at guys like Ken Elie,Errol Mcfarlane,Nevick Denoon etc i personally had the opportunity to work with almost every Youth player in the country in my time,just to mane a few that you are familiar with ,just call them i've worked with them,they work with various secondary schools all the time it's been going on for years,all our national teams usually have a Army Coach/trainer as part of technical staff.
Coops 1st orf let me apoligize for offending you...with some explanation....
Any athlete who has a choice of choosing a foreign scholarship to playing for the Army, >90% of the time I think they would go on the scholarship, any athlete who has other opportunities to acquiring a fairly decent job, as opposed to serving(a fairly decent job as well), would probably choose what would seem to be the easiest work...Any athlete who has the opportunity to make more money playing for Jabloteh, W connection or such, would be actively recruited and be more successful in acquiring their services, before the army..
I am not implying that the Army would recruit the uneducated, I am implying the Army may be left with 99% of the time ,the rest...
The Army takes this rest and I always believed through discpline, proper training, organization , attention and nuturing, unity and team bonding, develop these rest into better individuals (in most cases) as wel.
So although you worked with the Latapy,Chinapoo,Nakhid,Veron Skinner,Shaka etc...how many of them if any joined the army ? How many named player coming out of any secondary school joined the army team right away ? I don't know about the last 30 yrs, but I can tell you in my Time there was 1 I could think of -Wayne Lewis joined Police, can't remember if Ron la did too.... if so, 1/2 in how many..I am not saying the Army does not produce good players, I am saying, I think they are average players (or below) before ...I am saying, the Army in very rare cases, if at all, has the best of the best...and they do a fantastic job and changes these players into the Henrys, Coopers, Phillips, Scotlands and Lawrences that represent our National team, it is probably therefore our best academy over the years in T&T.....I knew below avg. players I played with before they joined, and years later when I played against them in friendlies in MTL, there ability and self confidence in the game was amazing, and the only area I could match them was because I had a greater desire and determination to play professionally, although I myself though an average baller, was an above avg athlete..
It is for this I inquire because I recognize that what the Army does is a great thing, and would be interested in helping, by putting 1 or 2 of those better players in that setting and see where that goes...
Please respond, feel free to correct any misconceptions on my part. As I stated, I am making some assumptions, as things probably changed in the last 30 yrs.....thanks
