Staff Sergeant Ross Rus­sell's tenure with the T&T De­fence Force, which falls un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, has come to an end af­ter 26 years.

This al­so means that, at present, the 47-year-old will not be able to serve the Army-Coast Guard com­bi­na­tion as coach of its Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League foot­ball team as head coach or in any of­fi­cial po­si­tion.

On­ly if Rus­sell–the most suc­cess­ful coach of the De­fence Force foot­ball set-up in re­cent years�is pro­mot­ed to the rank of War­rant Of­fi­cer would he be able to serve the TTDF and its top-flight foot­ball team for three more years–some­thing Rus­sell has been very op­ti­mistic about over the past year.

At present, Rus­sell's able ap­pren­tice and close friend, 36-year-old Lance Cor­po­ral Mar­vin Gor­don, will serve as in­ter­im head coach and will lead the sol­diers out against Play Whe San Juan Jabloteh from 7 pm at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um on Sat­ur­day in Round One Match Day Eight of the 2014-2015 Dig­i­cel Pro League.

An­oth­er for­mer play­er, An­ton Joseph, will con­tin­ue to serve as as­sis­tant coach of the top-flight De­fence Force foot­ball team.

Last month, Rus­sell served out his fi­nal days of his 26 years as a mem­ber of the TTDF pri­or to De­cem­ber 18 when the Staff Sergeant reached his 47th birth­day�the re­tire­ment age based on his last rank�two days af­ter his last match in charge which end­ed in a 1-1 draw with Point Fortin Civic.

Rus­sell's suc­cess­es as coach of De­fence Force's top-flight team in­cludes win­ning the sol­diers' two (Dig­i­cel) Pro League cham­pi­onships (2010-2011 & 2012-2013), the First Cit­i­zens Cup (2009) and the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl (2012) dur­ing his spell, which be­gan in 2009.

Last sea­son, De­fence Force, in­ter­rupt­ed by is­sues re­lat­ing to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, went tro­phy­less for De­fence Force. It was al­so a trau­mat­ic sea­son for the team, af­ter 30-year-old club winger and T&T play­er Kevon Carter died of a heart at­tack on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2014, and two months ear­li­er de­fend­er Rawle Fletch­er was mur­dered in his Cou­va home­town.

How­ev­er Rus­sell's ac­com­plish­ments in the new era of pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball in T&T have not gone un­no­ticed.

"He (Rus­sell) was a ded­i­cat­ed sol­dier... both to coun­try and or­gan­i­sa­tion," said Lieu­tenant Basil Thomp­son, who serves as the team man­ag­er. "He usu­al­ly puts coun­try first (opt­ing to var­i­ous na­tion­al foot­ball team coach­ing du­ties) dur­ing times of mil­i­tary cours­es where he could have been pro­mot­ed in the ser­vice. He served the coun­try in foot­ball and even in the ser­vice he has al­ways been dili­gent, nev­er once hav­ing a prob­lem. And with the cur­rent squad of foot­ballers we have, the mo­ti­va­tion he in­spires is un­par­al­lel."

De­spite be­ing away from the job, it is al­so un­der­stood that Rus­sell, who present­ly serves the T&T men's Un­der-17 team as as­sis­tant coach/goal­keep­er coach, con­tin­ues to un­of­fi­cial­ly share ad­vice with the cur­rent coach­ing staff at De­fence Force FC.

"I think I've served the ser­vice well and nev­er brought it un­der any dis­re­pute," said Rus­sell, who has al­so served T&T men's and women's teams from youth to se­nior lev­els in var­i­ous coach­ing po­si­tions. "I thought I de­served the pro­mo­tion to serve a few more years."

To­day, the for­mer na­tion­al said he holds no re­grets over his de­ci­sion 26 years ago to join the T&T De­fence Force.

Rus­sell, a 19-year-old cap­tain of the na­tion­al Un­der-20 team, en­rolled in the army in 1988 and went on to serve the De­fence Force ad­mirably as a sol­dier and foot­baller.

"I think the De­fence Force was good to me," Rus­sell added. "I en­joyed every mo­ment in the De­fence Force... all 26 years of it and I won't change any­thing even if I had the chance. I think I was a very good sol­dier and served the De­fence Force and coun­try to the best of my abil­i­ty."

Rus­sell, dur­ing his ear­ly time as a sol­dier, was at the time the on­ly na­tion­al foot­baller serv­ing the in­fantry bat­tal­ion of the TTDF but went on to have an ex­cit­ing and well-ac­com­plished play­ing ca­reer. He won every ti­tle on of­fer do­mes­ti­cal­ly, which in­clud­ed mul­ti­ple na­tion­al league ti­tles and the FA Tro­phy, as well as the Caribbean Club ti­tle.

But for Rus­sell his most pre­cious mem­o­ry is "lead­ing De­fence Force to ten straight league wins then win­ning the (2010-2011 Dig­i­cel Pro) league ti­tle as coach," while his fond­est mil­i­tary mem­o­ries in­cludes be­ing a mem­ber of Echo Com­pa­ny (mil­i­tary unit) and be­ing a foot­baller while serv­ing in the front line, as well as "be­ing the fittest re­cruit in my time."

Rus­sell's son, Ross Rus­sell Jr, a left-foot­ed de­fend­er/winger, has al­ready fol­lowed some of his fa­ther's foot­steps, rep­re­sent­ing T&T at youth lev­el, and join­ing the mil­i­tary where he al­so serves the De­fence Force top-flight team.

Rus­sell Sr said he plans to con­tin­ue coach­ing for as long as he can, and there are al­ready of­fers from lo­cal clubs, but plans to weigh his op­tions care­ful­ly.