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Offline Feliziano

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Big magician interview
« on: November 13, 2005, 11:49:12 AM »
hey Big here's your interview with the Express..heard you said you didnt know how to post it..so here it is..good one by the way  :beermug:

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_news?id=11556103


WITH ALL THE attention T&T World Cup football has received in the weeks since the Mexico game,it struck me there was one important group
being completely ignored officially by everyone - the loyal Warriors fan, Gary Hector, lead singer of local rock and roll band, jointpop, has followed local football for 20 years and written about it occasionally since 1993. As well as playing a pretty mean guitar, he covered the last Gold Cup for
the Express.

Q: How many of the home qualifying matches did you attend?

 A: Every one. All of the last round, the semi-final, the qualifying rounds. For the last five or six campaigns.

Did you have comps or a pass?
A: Never did. I pay for all my tickets for myself, wife, two kids. Every game: four tickets.

 What did that run you?


A: It's $200 a ticket for the covered stands. In this campaign there were ten games, all told.

So it has cost you eight grand to

support the team?
Basically. [Chuckles]

Why covered stands as opposed to grounds?

A: Sometimes it lacks a bit of passion but the view is good. I always sit on the half-line, as high as possible. You get to see the full spread of the field, more of the tactical plays and so on. Sometimes you miss the little old talk the uncovered will give you; but when it comes to a Trinidad & Tobago football match, you just want to pay attention.

What time did you get to the

(Hasely Crawford) stadium to buy

tickets on Friday?


A:Five a.m. We joined up with the Socawarriors. net group, a fan-based forum covering Trinidad football for Trinis all over the world, Georgia, Japan, here, and you only know them by their handles. I am "The Big Magician"; [teenage son] Cheyenne is "The Small Magician". You get to meet the people you've been chatting with for years. One of the moderators of the side is "Tall Man" from Miami. He came straight from the airport to line up at one o'clock [Friday] morning. These guys have been running a service for T&T football fans for the past eight years. And they're lining up from 1 a.m. There was a huge fear we wouldn't get tickets. We got through [but] I know people a mere ten minutes behind us probably didn't. They went in a flash.

It was easy to get a ticket for the

first game against the US on Ash Wednesday, though?

A: Yeah, they put them on sale two weeks before and you could probably have waited until the day before. When the campaign starts, sadly, there's a wait-and-see approach. But this is the actual World Cup. What you see on TV is the grand finals. So when someone says, "Steups. You going and watch that? Them fellas playing a setta crap!" Well, that's the best you're going to see before your own eyes in Trinidad. You have to be willing to give the team time to grow and you follow the journey.

What did you think of selling tickets

in just three outlets the day before

the game?


A:I can see where they're coming from. They'd probably have more control over people holding tickets for people; whereas in the bank, you could call some bank friend and say, "Hold down a ten for me". Having it out in the open, you get there early, get in line and you will get your chance.

 

I bought a Rolling Stones DVD in August and I've been getting e-mails

offering me discounts as a "preferred customer"; what do the Rolling

Stones know that the TTFA don't?


A:[Chuckles] There are so many ways you could do it. You could go along the lines of the organised fan club. They have it in England: the supporters association get tickets first...A simple thing like season tickets: the real fan will say, "I'm going to them anyhow, even if we're knocked out early or have no other chance". If we had no chance by the time Mexico came here, it would have, what, 3,000 people want to see Mexico vs Trinidad? I would have been covered because I would have taken my season ticket up-front.

Is this support about football or Trinidad & Tobago?

A:Hmmm. Good question. It's a combination of both obviously but it's deeper than that. Football would have been the starting point. When you're 12 or 13, you're just into the football. We could sit in Trinidad and watch [foreign] football on TV or I could watch a club game, Jabloteh vs W Connection or whatever, and the bad passes don't hurt you as much as seeing Trinidad & Tobago make a bad pass. Something about you wanting that team to do well and then the connection is made. Trinidad & Tobago football team taught me about my country more than a bunch of other things. In 1989, I was 26 years old, the time in a man's life when he's thinking what to do. I was thinking of getting out of Trinidad. It had kinda started to mean nothing; being a musician, too, you want to get out there and play music. That Strike Squad campaign solidified Trinidad & Tobago to me. I found the country through the football team. Not some leader preaching something: my connection to my country came through football: yes, I am a Trinidad & Tobago person.

Based on the regular as opposed to

the bandwagon crowd, is national

football truly national?

A:You'll see the whole of Trinidad [yesterday]. Everybody wants the same for the team and they have every right, be they bandwagon or diehard. But the general football crowd is pretty much mixed ethnic background. I see all types at the smaller matches. I never really looked at it from any ethnic thing. I just know they're Trinidad & Tobago football fans.

Why the ground and not a sports bar?

The atmosphere of the stadium, that buzz, that thing you can't describe, you can't get that at home. The tactical point of view, if you want to see football as Xs and Os and that strategic thing, the television won't show that. They just show where the ball is, not why the right back is running all this way. But it's the vibe in the stadium. You meet strangers and you talk football. When you go regularly, you generally sit in a certain area and you realise [chuckling] you have a kind of adopted family. Is years you and him sitting right next to each other. You'll find about 18 people sitting in the same place all the time.

You feel the government did enough

for football this rounds?


A:Big, big no. Nothing. Whatever they just gave still amounts to nothing. They have no idea whatsoever what they're dealing with. They don't know what it means. Forget qualifying. Just having a national programme, being organised from the youth up...I'd think ministers are well travelled and educated but they have no idea what football means to countries around the world and to us. Because they wait. They think it's about winning; it's not. It's about playing and being one of the teams that can compete. But you must put money in to develop players and coaches. We wait for the very last thing when the players are old and are trying to win a tournament. It's fully the wrong way around. Yet we've proved we could be in there with a chance. To qualify for the World Cup, you need to be around qualification a lot. It can't be, one year you didn't get to this stage, the next campaign you did, the next two you don't. You must be in that last six all the time. If you're in it three times in a row, you're going to get through. That's why the Costa Ricans are always there and that's why they qualify. There's no maths in that. It's because you're developed and you have respect in the region and people know, "Whew, we have to play Trinidad & Tobago tomorrow, that's a big game". You have to become a footballing nation.

Do you feel the private sector did enough?

A:Nope. And thanks to the ones who did. It's another wait-and-see Trinidad approach. We don't realise what it means. All over the world, I talk football to people. If I meet a Colombian, we talk about Valderama. Qualification means that conversation will get better. Because now they can talk to you at a higher level. Now, it won't be, "Yeah, we know Dwight Yorke". Now they'll know us, Trinidad & Tobago: "You all played in the World Cup in 2006". They can't take that away from us! People will remember our name forever. And that's what the government and private sector don't see: it's not like they're helping a football team, nothing to do with that: it's the country.

The brand Trinidad & Tobago?

A:Yeah. The World Cup is a global party. And you now bringing your vibe to that party. Jamaica had the most popular [souvenir] shirt after the French shirt in [French World Cup]. And we have something to bring!

Suppose we have another November 19?
A:That is so possible because it's sport and sport is cruel. We want it bad, they want it bad. It's going to come down to that thing I call the theatre, which is why I go. You can train, do this, that, there are little moments in the game you're not prepared for. As on stage, the little moments when you have to wing it: you could fall flat on your face or you could produce magic. That's the theatre, the magic, the part that drives the people, that gets the coach off his seat. Who capitalises on those moments will make the magic. But what we had [yesterday] was only a first half. Whether we win or lose on (yesterday), we have Wednesday to play the second half.
« Last Edit: November 13, 2005, 11:59:55 AM by Feliziano »
Feliz
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Offline Reaper2004

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Re: Big magician interview
« Reply #1 on: November 13, 2005, 12:00:01 PM »
GREAT ARTICLE!!!


Offline Feliziano

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Re: Big magician interview
« Reply #2 on: November 13, 2005, 12:01:52 PM »
ah have one question..how come Tallman had to line up to get a ticket..but he on the charter to Bahrain?..any explanations for that one?

also ah hope allyuh realize the need to get some sort of Supporters Asscociation going after this ticket mess.
Feliz
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Offline NYtriniwhiteboy..

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Re: Big magician interview
« Reply #3 on: November 13, 2005, 12:05:39 PM »
Great interview!!
Back in Trini...

 

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