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29
Fri, Mar

Typography

Whatever course Trinidad and Tobago football takes in the future, it is unlikely that any achievement will be as memorable as the 2006 World Cup in Germany. We may well make it to South Africa in 2010, and may even score a goal, but the first World Cup was a unique collective experience. For two weeks, Germany was one big liming spot for friends - new and old. My own interaction with fellow fans of the Soca Warriors was limited to gamedays because I was stationed at Karlsruhe, which was an hour by train from the fan base-camp of Frankfurt.

Staying in Karlsruhe paid off on the day of the England game however, as I had the privilege of sharing a train ride with Malcolm McLean. Malcolm McLean is a great example of the variety of Trinis that came out to support the Soca Warriors in Germany. McLean is an 82 year-old former Trinidad and Tobago international who currently resides in Canada. McLean’s vitality belies his age and I would be blessed to have his vigour and demeanour at 62, never mind 82. One shining example of these were his travel bags which contained one brand new pair of football boots. Why? “In case I get a call up to play on the field!” was the joking reply.

McLean was not senile and didn’t really expect to get called on to the field, but carrying the boots was an expression of just how far he would go to see the Warriors win. It also made for a good conversation topic and despite his joking nature I was convinced that if, by some miracle or tragedy, he was actually called upon, he would not hesitate to take the field. Malcolm has a vivid memory for facts and figures and he was a walking museum of Trinidad and Tobago history, with a collection of medals, photos and newspaper clippings. He was able to rattle off all the names and nicknames of all of the 1947 selection that played Jamaica. This was a treat for me because, although names like Stollmeyer, Galt, Gomez and Prior Jones were familiar, I was surprised to learn that Syl Dopson had a career as a footballer, as well as a legendary bandleader.

Mclean was born in Guyana and moved to Trinidad at a young age. He was part of a footballing family and his father represented both Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. This puts the elder McLean in a small group of footballers who have represented more than one country at senior international level that includes DiStefano, Puskas and his son Malcolm. Whereas DiStefano (Argentina and Spain) and Puskas (Hungary and Spain) shared allegiances to countries with no real rivalry, McLean, the younger, represented two fierce Caribbean competitors, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. The circumstances of McLean’s transfer are even more unique and they tell us something of the nature of football as an amateur sport in the post-war years. In February of 1947, a 23 year-old McLean traveled to Jamaica to play six games against Jamaica at Sabina Park. In order to make this trip he had to quit his job in Trinidad because his employer would not give him permission to travel, even though it was on national duty. While on tour in Jamaica, McLean was offered a job and, with no firm prospects at home, he remained in Jamaica at tour’s end to work in the private sector. When the Jamaican national team made the return trip to Trinidad and Tobago later in the same year, McLean found himself lining up against the same players who were his team-mates only seven months earlier.

McLean was a winger who was more than willing to play a role up front. As pleased as he was with our qualification, he laments that football was played very differently in his time and that the Soca Warriors were too defensive. He remembers a game with real entertainers like Julio Ramirez, the “Black Marvel from Venezuela” who popularized the scissors kick as far back as 1932, well before Pele became associated with the move. He played for Shamrock one of the original members of the Trinidad Amateur Football Association (TAFA), which preceded the TTFA and TTFF. One piece of memorabilia was an original TAFA badge proudly displayed on what else, a red jacket. Curiously, although he was good enough to play senior club football at age sixteen, he was never asked to play for QRC at school level. When pressed to name the best player he has ever played with, he doesn’t give an answer but he does express a fondness for Bertie Thompson who played against both him and his father. Despite the 30 year difference between the father and son, Malcolm’s prodigious talent and his father’s long career meant that the father and son played against each other on more than one occasion at club level.

Despite his many years abroad he was unmistakably Trini, as he instantly engaged me and two other Soca Warriors supporters from Philadelphia - one of whom was Mauritian, with full Soca Warrior face-paint in a two-hour long ole talk. He had several stories that would fascinate any fan yearning to learn more of Trinidad and Tobago’s footballing history and my only regret is that I didn’t start taking notes soon enough and that I did not take more pictures. The irony was that although I was looking forward to seeing our current national heroes live, meeting Malcolm McLean, a much less celebrated former player was one of the best experiences of the trip.