What we should actually be discussing are the merits of Primary School football and how we can get our better coaches working at this age, with a specific focus on improving technique. This of course could supplement similar programs at the club level (if they already exist)
Dais ah good question....I cyar remember my primary school having a football team, or there being interschool rivalry. It really have that in TNT?
Question....anybody here play football for they primary school?
Asolutely. I play for Mt. Lambert RC back in 81-82 and my brother play b4 that. There was football in primary school, however, who coaching is the problem. We basicially had a teacher that basically assemble the squad.
Same here. I played against Mickey Trotman in the East zone Primary school final. We bounce up again some years later at the Intercol level.
No real quality in coaching at that level as far as I remember. Maybe that is the root of the problem?
Well actually, dais ah revelation to me. I knew there was track and field(ah still have mih relay gold)
, and sports day etc.. but I had no idea there was organized football too. Cricket too allyuh? I only start to play football in form 1 Fatima. No joke. In truth, it had some fellas who was already decent in the class, but not overly so. Most ah dem fellas learn the game in secondary school. And this was in the heyday of Fatima big intercol side. Ah few months of running with dem men and is only beats I was sharing.
I feel this real important. Ah notice plenty men saying that our players are late bloomers. Could it be because we start playing organized football kinda late?Now starting to play organized games at 10/11 years is too late to compete with world class folks.
In the US, even though in Elementary and Middle School there may not be organized teams, they does play plenty "soccer" in PE, actually with competent enough 'coaches' (some of whom never kick ah lime seed in they life but just involved and loving it). Dais in Miami round my area, me eh know 'bout elsewhere. Another real important part is though, during the season, you will see soccer moms carting dey kids to run ball in some nearby community league, ALL OVER DE PLACE, like AYSO dat was news in trini the other day, and yuh will see plenty youths playing ORGANIZED ball on ah big field in uniform getting bawl up by dey coach and parents running up and down de field cussing each other and ting, with dey coolers and grandma and all.
I feel our problem is not just the quality of the coaching at youth level, and in school, allyuh doh fool allyuh self, quality coaching is non-existent in intercol, SSFL, whatever allyuh want to call it, I feel we doh play enough organized ball at a young enough level and the parents not involved enough in youth ball. We doh start early enough, and this is why we so technically incompetent later. Right now I feel we at ah stage (the U7 team for example) where we know how to play the game, but our skills preventing us from playing as we want.
Ah bet yuh if yuh take a poll right here on this forum, yuh will find that the fellas who reach any kinda heights in ball, had some parent behind them particularly when they was younger pushing them on. Same way with Academics.
It eh rocket science fellas, for us to take that leap forward, we need a combination of better coaches all'round, plenty more organized ball and, parental input, AT THE PRIMARY SCHOOL AGE LEVEL.
And to deal with the current issue, NO, intercol as it currently standS CANNOT prepare our athletes for world class football. IT NEVER HAS!!
