Adding some spunk to schools’ football

There must be some way out of making the annual Secondary Schools’ Football Tournament more attractive and meaningful to the participating teams and the football public at large.

From the conception of the format to the execution, we lack any real interest or sense of purpose and are simply going through the motions.{{more}}

St Vincent and the Grenadines has decisively been left to trail in this regard, and most of the cause is our own self-undoing.

The schools’ tournament is devoid of publicity and the Ministry of Education, in whose lap it falls, has in recent times been an abject failure, as little is done to make the nation aware of what is happening.

And, last Friday’s start was a perfect case in point, as awareness of the proceedings at the Arnos Vale Playing Field was for the selected few.

The Ministry continues to get a poor grade for its promotion of the football tournament, as is the case with other disciplines, save and except for the Inter-Secondary Schools’ Track and Field Championships.

By the same token, many would not be aware that the netball component of the schools’ sporting programme is set to get going this Friday, October 21.

The same drab, uneventful opening awaits netball’s opening, making it a carbon copy as what occurred with the football.

For last Friday, one would have thought that at the traditional opening matches, which featured last year’s finalists in both the junior and senior divisions, a better representation would have come from the student bodies of the four schools: St Martin’s, Bethel High, Dr JP Eustace Memorial and the Georgetown Secondary.

Yet again, it goes right back to the emphasis or lack thereof that we place on sports in our schools and in St Vincent and the Grenadines as a whole.

Besides, there are some ready done ingredients which should have put the annual football exercise on a stronger base and an event which would have grabbed more attention from the Vincentian public.

This tournament includes the participation of most of the best players who are under the age of 18 years.

It is replete with players who are regulars in the many aged competitions, both at the community level and in the national competitions staged by the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation.

The very way even the schools approach the tournament — it is common that football is set for the first term — yet some institutions are found wanting with their preparations.

Most schools wait until the term is already in progress to begin their selection process, delaying any constructive training.

Therefore, this type of haphazard preparation leaves most of the schools taking three or four matches to find their way, before any type of chemistry is realized.

It is also apparent that some school heads are not for football or for sports in general, hence give little support to their sports department. And as such, little is gained from the schools’ participation, except some exceptional players, who can produce against the odds when they enter the field of play.

That thrust towards excellence in sports at the secondary schools’ level is slowly evaporating, and is causing run-of-the-mill patterns to be deeply rooted and grounded.

These factors, when picked apart and analysed, could well be the reason why the schools’ football tournament has been without a corporate sponsor for some time now, as entities are not seeing the type of administrative efforts to add some spunk to it.

Now examined, some drastic changes must come, and come sooner than later.

This column has been an advocate of change in the scheduling of the football tournament matches, especially among the seniors.

To this end, staging matches after 3 p.m. can attract a larger spectatorship, inclusive of students, parents and the general public at large.

Also, with proper planning, some of the fixtures can be convened on weekends.

Seemingly, our decision and policy makers are hooked too much in traditions and are lovers of problems rather than agents of change.

We cannot forever expect to be doing the same thing over and over and come up with a different result.

Football. over the years, has been labelled as the “Game of the People”, and should live through that tag line.