Shaun Fuentes

Yohance Mar­shall has played five match­es for the T&T team and now he is try­ing to play his part in se­cur­ing his first ma­jor sil­ver­ware in lo­cal foot­ball as he mar­shals the Cen­tral FC de­fence in the clos­ing stages of the T&T Pro League.

The 28-year-old old for­mer Rochester Rhi­nos play­er has been a force in the Cen­tral back line since join­ing the club ear­li­er this sea­son. His un­der­stand­ing of the game, his par­tic­u­lar role and his coura­geous and nev­er say die ap­proach to the game has made him a fix­ture in Ter­ry Fen­wick's line up.

Team man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Brent San­cho be­lieves the play­er could play a key role in the team's as­pi­ra­tions for a place in next sea­son's Caribbean club cham­pi­onship and Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League.

"He's come in­to the club and fit­ted right in," San­cho said. "Ob­vi­ous­ly he has some ex­pe­ri­ence hav­ing played in the US and in Asia and he brings a lev­el of ma­tu­ri­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism with him to Cen­tral FC and he's help­ing the younger guys around him which is a plus for the club."

Mar­shall al­so played two games with LA Galaxy as well as Chainat FC in Thai­land.

Cen­tral has brought in the likes of Sean De Sil­va, Le­ston Paul, Ataulla Guer­ra and Willis Plaza, who have all played their parts in the team's ti­tle dri­ve in the late stretch of the sea­son.

Lat­apy: Grass­roots­de­vel­op­ment plays a key role

Rus­sell Lat­apy turned out with his In­ver­ness This­tle staff mates to con­tribute to a train­ing ses­sion with school kids and said that grass­roots pro­grammes sim­i­lar to the one be­ing con­duct­ed by the TTFA, were im­por­tant to foot­ball de­vel­op­ment.

Lat­apy was part of BBC Scot­land's lat­est Sport­sound Road­show fea­tur­ing pupils from Lochardill Pri­ma­ry School in a mas­ter class at Bught Park in Scot­land last week.

For­mer Celtic goal­keep­er and Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al Pat Bon­ner led the ses­sion, along­side John Hugh­es and Lat­apy.

"It's about com­ing out to grass­roots ar­eas like this and pass­ing on some of the ex­pe­ri­ence and knowl­edge that we've ac­quired over the years," Lat­apy said.

"This is where I start­ed play­ing foot­ball–in a set­ting like this–and it's re­al­ly good to be here giv­ing some­thing back to these young kids. Not all of them will have the chance to make it in pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball, but the main thing is to get them off the street and give them a love for the game of foot­ball. This is im­por­tant for de­vel­op­ment es­pe­cial­ly in places like back home where I came from."

The TTFA grass­roots pro­gramme has seen youth coach­ing clin­ics be­ing con­duct­ed in sev­er­al ar­eas such as Mor­vant, Debe, La Brea, Point Fortin, Man­zanil­la, Paramin, Blan­chisseuse and Debe.

Glen nets dou­ble again­stIn­di­an League lead­ers

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Strik­er Cor­nell Glen re­turned to his scor­ing ways in the In­di­an Pre­mier League, scor­ing a dou­ble to help Shil­long La­jong to a 3-0 win over league lead­ers Ben­galu­ru FC on Sun­day evening.

Glen net­ted in the 81st and 94th minute) af­ter Uil­liams had opened the scor­ing for the hosts in the 46th minute.

The big win over Ben­galu­ru FC pushed the to 29 points from 20 match­es. The win al­so helps them re­tain their po­si­tion in the top five of the ta­ble, while Ben­galu­ru FC lead­ing the pack on 37 points. Glen's team will next face Mum­bai FC at the Nehru Sta­di­um on Sun­day. Glen is like­ly to be in the run­ning for se­lec­tion in the In­di­an Su­per League lat­er this year.

Al­so in the In­di­an League, T&T for­ward An­tho­ny Wolfe opened the scor­ing in the 24th minute to help Churchill Broth­ers to a 3-2 win over Pune FC, the for­mer club of ex-T&T de­fend­er Cyd Gray.

Shaun Fuentes is the di­rec­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com