Sunderland trio encourage a whole new ball game
By: Scott Wilson (The Northern Echo).In the third of his reports from Trinidad & Tobago ahead of tomorrow's international with England, Chief Sports Writer Scott Wilson discovers a country that has fallen in love with Sunderland.QUEEN'S Park Savannah is the largest public space in Port of Spain, the sultry, bustling capital of Trinidad & Tobago.
Surrounded by a three-mile circuit of perimeter roads, it is no more than a full-blooded cover drive away from the Queen's Park Oval, one of the spiritual homes of West Indian cricket, and at its northern flank it is overlooked by the palatial home of Brian Lara, arguably the most talented batsman the cricketing world has ever seen.
So given its strong sporting links, it should not be a surprise to find the park staging numerous impromptu matches at almost any hour of the day.
Yet as I wandered along one of the many paths that criss-cross the park last month, it was impossible not to be shocked by what was going on around me.
There were games going on everywhere, but there was not a cricket bat in sight.
Instead, makeshift football pitches stretched as far as the eye could see. And while some players wore the all red shirts of the Soca Warriors - the Trinidad & Tobago national team that will face England tomorrow evening - here, there and everywhere were Trinidadian youngsters in the colours of Sunderland FC.
Had it not been for the 30-degree heat, it could have been Ryhope Rec on a Saturday afternoon.
"People tend to assume that people in Trinidad & Tobago play cricket and nothing else,"
said Shaun Fuentes, formerly a sports journalist with the Trinidad Express and, for the last seven years, a communications officer with the Trinidad & Tobago FA. "But that wasn't really the case in the past, and it's certainly not the case now.
"This is a football country, and it's become more and more of a football country in recent years.
Partly that's because of the decline of the West Indies cricket team, but mostly I'd say it's because of the improvements that have happened in football in the last decade.
"Dwight Yorke proved to the world that Trinidad & Tobago could produce footballers, and I think people over here started to believe it for themselves when the national team qualified for the 2006 World Cup.
"Now, you've got the likes of Kenwyne Jones and Carlos Edwards playing in the biggest league in the world, and that's given a whole generation of youngsters something to aspire to."
Instead of wanting to be the next Lara, they want to be the next Jones. They want to turn professional and get a lucrative move to Europe. They want to represent Trinidad & Tobago in the World Cup finals. And most interestingly of all, they want to play for Sunderland.
IT IS hardly scientific, but one of the unwritten rules of sports journalism is that if you want a five-minute window on what somewhere is really like, you'll get it from a taxi driver.
So as I travelled to Trinidad's Marvin Lee Stadium to watch the Soca Warriors take on Barbados in a warm-up game for tomorrow's friendly international with England, I thought I'd broach the subject of Sunderland.
It was the week after the Black Cats' 2-0 defeat to Bolton, a game that had seen Roy Keane threaten to make sweeping changes to his squad, and it was days before the Wearsiders would entertain Arsenal in the final game of the Premier League season. But did Leo Forbes, my jovial driver, know anything about either game?
"You're from Sunderland," he said.
"Well tell me something, why does Roy Keane keep on persisting with Chopra? He's no good man. I watched him in the Bolton game and I don't think he had a single shot at the goal.
How many goals has he scored this season? I'll tell you. Six.
That's not good enough for the Premier League. And Murphy's not good enough either. I'd get rid of both of them and give one of the young lads like O'Donovan a chance."
There are season-ticket holders at the Stadium of Light that could have not come up with as detailed an answer, yet during my week-long stay in Trinidad & Tobago, it became clear that Leo was by no means alone.
I spent half-an-hour in a bar discussing the deficiencies of Liam Miller's time-keeping, and took 20 minutes to buy a newspaper just because the shop owner wanted to relive the 3-2 victory over Middlesbrough that secured Sunderland's Premier League status. Even two members of Trinidad & Tobago's national team wanted to know if Keane was "really as scary in real life".
The interest in Sunderland was both genuine and intense, but was it simply because two members of the Soca Warriors starting XI currently ply their trade at the Stadium of Light?
"I don't think you can underestimate the importance of Carlos and Kenwyne to football in this country," said Fuentes. "They're standardbearers for us, and people have latched on to their club in England as a result.
"You've still got the odd Manchester United or Liverpool fan, like you have in most countries in the world. But even older football fans who would previously have said they followed one of the bigger English sides now find themselves rooting for Sunderland when they're watching the Premier League matches on TV. They're fans of Carlos and Kenwyne, and of course they're fans of Dwight."
DWIGHT Yorke was the first Trinbagonian to enjoy footballing success on the world stage and, especially in his native Tobago, remains the closest thing the islands have to royalty.
Tobago's national stadium is the Dwight Yorke Stadium, one of its largest villages, Canaan, bills itself as "Dwight Yorke's home" and his face adorns numerous posters and billboards in the streets around Crown Point Airport.
Having been discovered by former England manager Graham Taylor during a preseason tour of the West Indies, Yorke left Tobago to join Aston Villa in 1989. Whenever he returns now as a three-time Premier League champion and one-time Champions League winner, his arrival is akin to a public holiday.
"When your Queen is at Buckingham Palace, you fly a flag," said Tobago resident Patrick Morrell. "When Dwight Yorke is in Tobago, we throw a carnival.
"It's a small island and pretty much everyone knows Dwight from somewhere down the line.
He's been a real hero for us because he went to England when nobody thought people from Tobago could play football, and he won just about everything there is to win.
"He put Tobago on the map, and opened the door for a lot of young sportsmen to be able to go over to England and make a career. Without Dwight there would have been no Carlos Edwards and no Kenwyne Jones.
And there would have been no kids at school here in Tobago wearing their Sunderland shirts and wanting to do everything that Dwight has done in England. If it hadn't been for him, I think the only sport in Tobago would have been cricket."
So thanks to Yorke, Edwards and Jones, Trinidad & Tobago boasts a trio of footballing idols that have helped transform the sport's status. Sunderland have benefited as well, with Yorke and Edwards playing pivotal roles in the club's promotion to the Premier League and Jones starring as they survived their first season in the top-flight.
The relationship is mutually beneficial and, thanks to an investment from both sides, it looks like becoming stronger in the future.
Earlier this year, Trinidad & Tobago under-17 international Leston Paul was one of eight Caribbean footballers selected by former England international John Barnes to spend a week training at Sunderland's Academy of Light complex.
The scheme will be repeated annually and, while there are no formal agreements in place, the Black Cats are now ideally positioned to cherry-pick the best developing talent from the Caribbean.
"Sunderland are a magnificent partner for us," said Colm Delves, head of Digicel, the mobile phone company that part-sponsors the initiative. We are confident that their relationship with Caribbean football will continue to grow from strength to strength."
On the evidence of four days overlooking Queen's Park Savannah, it is already doing exactly that. A chunk of Trinidad & Tobago's sporting culture is now firmly connected to Sunderland. For Pennywell or Plains Farm, you can now read downtown Port of Spain.
Part 1:
‘Military made me,’ says EdwardsPart 2:
Jones was always going to make it
