Vincy youth footballers in kick-start loop

Young footballers under the age of 17 years from St Vincent and the Grenadines are priming up for the possibility of being among those chosen to travel to Stanford Bridge, the home of English football club Chelsea{{more}}, to receive further training and a possible stint with the club’s junior squad.

The Vincentian selectees will be part of a wider Caribbean pool which will assemble in Barbados later this year and be looped in the Digicel Kick Start Academy, before the final selections are made.

The process begins here this Saturday, when local coaches will have a look at the talent from the leeward side of the island at the Layou Playing Field.

Next Saturday, March 16, it will be the turn for the Kingstown zonal camp at the Victoria Park, with the last camp for the windward side of the island on March 23, at the Stubbs Playing Field.

From the three zonal camps, thirty players will be chosen and will be viewed by a team of Chelsea coaches, who will be here during the latter part of next month.

Three youngsters will make the final cut and journey to Barbados.

While here, local coaches will also have a session with the Chelsea coaches.

This latest achievement of getting on the kick-start clinics is seen by president of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation Venold Coombs as “wonderful for our football”.

Coombs told SEARCHLIGHT last week that he is aware that St Vincent and the Grenadines is pregnant with young football talent and is hopeful that at least one youngster will get that elusive opportunity to head to England.

Coombs underlined that the inclusion of St Vincent and the Grenadines in the regional package has come under his stewardship.

For several years now, St Vincent and the Grenadines has been sidelined in the kick-start clinics, while Barbados, Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, St Lucia, Grenada and Jamaica have all had their young football talent exposed to the overseas coaches.

Among the famed coaches who have been involved in the kick-start selection has been Jamaican born and former England player, John Barnes.(RT)