If things go according to plan, the Arima Velodrome, one of the country’s oldest sporting facilities in Trinidad and Tobago, will receive a much needed facelift.
This follows a request by FC Santa Rosa, a rising football club in the East Zone who are targeting entry into the TT Pro League next year.
The Santa Rosa outfit through its president Keith Look Loy is proposing to have the run-down Arima facility outfitted with an artificial turf on the field as well as proper seating facilities, dressing room and officials’ box that will be more amenable to its users.
This request was made to the Arima Borough Corporation at a recent town meeting with Mayor Adrian Cabralis on March 11 to discuss a ten-year draft plan for the development of the town.
Look Loy, a former national player and coach who is now a Technical Advisor at football’s world governing body (FIFA) told Newsday that the request was made because of ongoing water problems.
He feels that with an artificial field, there will be no need to maintain natural grass through the use of water. In addition, it will provide an opportunity for more matches to be played on the facility on a daily basis.
Yesterday Norris Ferguson, another top official at the FC Santa Rosa revealed the club has already given its architects the go-ahead to visit the facility to assess the amount of work needed and the cost for the face-lift job.
He explained that club officials are now awaiting a report from their architects which will be handed over to the borough corporation.
Ferguson explained further that the club has received a good response from the borough corporation following their request. The club is now in the process of working out sponsorship deals with corporate Trinidad and Tobago if they are to be accepted into the country’s top flight football league.
Ferguson pointed out that the club has received interest from companies and are continuing to work hard to ensure that they are included, come 2011.
In the meanwhile however the club has been focussing on building a team. Ferguson said they have, for the first time in years, confirmed their participation in this year’s Eastern Football Association (EFA) competitions.
And only recently the team transferred two of their players — Jean-Luc Rochford and Daneil Cyrus to Caledonia AIA in the TT Pro League. This followed the qualification of the team’s Under-16 outfit to the semi-final of the Carapichaima Superleague after they defeated RSSR 4- 3 on penalty kicks last week.
The match ended goalless (0-0) in the quarter-final play-off before Xaepierre de Fou, Jevaughn Auguste, Andre Rampersad and Stephan Lewis booted in from the penalty mark to send them into Saturday’s (March 28) “semis”.
In another development at the club, four parents were appointed to managerial positions at the club. They are Anthony Kallicharan, Kathleen Kallicharan who were appointed as manager and assistant manager respectively of the Under-16 team, while Roger Smith and Alicia Evans have received similar position (manager and assistant manager) of the Under-14 team.