Football paradise lost ?

[fishs]

 This really happened.
 In 1988 whilst I was working in the Ministry of Sport Culture and Youth Affairs, .
The Ministry at that time had people like.
Neville Chance.( Also was assissitant under Gally)
Cecil Walker.
Hasely Crawford.
Anthony Gray.
Theo Cuffy.
Ian Morris.
Half of the world champion netball team .
Many more outstanding athletes that made TT proud over the years,
Yes even Claude Noel.

Anyhow the world hockey qualifiers were coming up and TT was hosting it.
Now this was a pretty important tournament because only the 5 top ranked teams in the world were assured places in the final, so we hosted I think it was 25 teams from all over the world.

In order to host the tournament we had to build a hockey facility that was to world standards obviously, this meant an artificial turf (the first put down in the english speaking caribbean) a pavilion or main stand with changing rooms, conference, bar etc. Well we did this and even brougth in carnival stands and erected them for the tourney.
We did all of this in record time (for the government and the fact that money was a bit tight)
Also a large part of the money we used came from an EU grant and they were ecstatic with the proposal that we put forward for the overall project.

That project was the Tacarigua Sports Facility.
Now if you go to the Tacarigua grounds now you will see apart from the hockey facility a indoor sports hall.

The full proposal was this.
Hockey facility.
Indoor sports hall (basketball, netball, volleyball, gymnastics, boxing, table tennis and believe it or not ball room dancing)
Lawn tennis.
Swimming
Cricket.
Rugby.
Football.

Now this would have covered the entire Tacarigua savanhha and a bit more.
This proposal had to get the blessings of the various sporting bodies and we faced some opposition from Hockey and swimming and one or two other bodies that felt their sports should be kept in Town (King George the 5th Park) because most of their players were from town or environs.
We dealt with that.
Now the Tacarigua Savannha is ideally placed because there are 3 main arteries to get to it (    Highway, EMR and bus route) also its located within a catchment area that captures North , West, East and South as far as maybe Couva (30-45 mins drive).
The meat of the proposal was this .
Provide world class training and playing facilities.
Provide school environment, we proposed to upgrade the eldorado youth camp and convert it to a sporting school. Academics and sports fulltime for the best kids.
So some or those who are from to far to get there everyday could be dormed .
Essentially similar to what is done by professional clubs.
We proposed that the entry age would be 11+ with parental permission and graduating at 17 but it was also the intent to have this facility become elite.
Of course there would be examinations and other testing methods used to select.
Our focus to begin with was FOOTBALL and cricket.
Lastly we felt that the facility would also generate income from pro teams from the US coming in an using the facilities during their winter break etc.

Well what has happened since.
Stadii built all over the place under utilised.
Tarouba.
Kids still learning to play football in parks and savanhas.
No 50m pool built yet.
Youth teams that are always second best.
And I'm sure you can add some of your own

[fishs]

   Meanwhile T&T';s 1-0 loss to the impressive Haitians should be seen as no disgrace, according to Haitian coach Jean-Yves Labaze who has revealed that the young Haitians have been working together in the Haitian Football Academy since they were 10-year-olds. The Haitians are confidently looking forward to winning the final against the Mexicans.

"We have benefitted from being together for a long time at the national academy. From the time we started to work together we had our ambitions on doing well at this level. We worked for a long while before political events caused us to break up for a month in 2004, but we came back together and we kept on working," Labaze said.

He spoke of the hardships experienced by the players, many of them coming from broken homes and with little other than football to look forward to. At least four of their under-17 players from last season have gone on to play professionally in Argentina, Uruguay and United States



This an excerpt from the express today.

 This is what I'm talking about

[rippin]

I looking foward to 2010 but right now there seems to be a big gap between the WC team and the other pleayers. Mean while the rest of Concacaf improving.

Corneal and Wim need to work with the SSFL and PFL. If they think picking some men and putting them in training is the answer I think they have another thing coming. Instead of constricting the numberr of players in the pipeline they should seek to expand the pool as much as possible. I not saying that they shouldn't have men in training but they need to not starting writing  men off from now.

[Feliziano]

doh worry we go be ready by 20/20 
de ball done rolling down Tarouba
i thought we had an Olympic size pool by now..steups

[truetrini]

doh worry we go be ready by 20/20 
de ball done rolling down Tarouba
i thought we had an Olympic size pool by now..steups

maybe when You ent see get back in power (holding meh belly here laffing real hard at meh own joke) we could build ah swimming pool in de old caroni cane fields?

[Disgruntled_Trini]

doh worry we go be ready by 20/20 
de ball done rolling down Tarouba
i thought we had an Olympic size pool by now..steups

maybe when You ent see get back in power (holding meh belly here laffing real hard at meh own joke) we could build ah swimming pool in de old caroni cane fields?

is only right
Ravi, Prakash and Mukesh need to learn to swim to.

[truetrini]

doh worry we go be ready by 20/20 
de ball done rolling down Tarouba
i thought we had an Olympic size pool by now..steups

maybe when You ent see get back in power (holding meh belly here laffing real hard at meh own joke) we could build ah swimming pool in de old caroni cane fields?

is only right
Ravi, Prakash and Mukesh need to learn to swim to.

I all fuh dem learning tuh swin, I jes wondering why when dem party was in power Manday eh see fit tuh hook dem up with football fields, swimming pools and de very same land.....??

Maybe he was too busy tiefing with he frens dem who mostly happen tuh be "creoles?"

[fishs]

 Check when the plan was developed to do the tacarigua ting.
NAR was in power then.
Most governments does jus eff around an tief but now an den dey does come up with a good idea dat the others does jus discard.
Manday , Patric Popo all ah dem cut from the same dutty linen.

One day everything going to be allright and I will be walking down araipita avenue wid a babe dat have men breaking dey neck an running into each other and lamp post an ting.