Shaun Fuentes

To­mor­row will mark nine years since for­mer Na­tion­al Un­der 20 cap­tain Mar­vin Lee passed away. Lee had suf­fered a ca­reer-end­ing neck in­jury af­ter a col­li­sion with Lan­don Dono­van of the Unit­ed States dur­ing an Un­der-20 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing game in March 2001 at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence play­ing fa­cil­i­ty, lat­er re­named the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um in mem­o­ry of him. Since the in­jury in which Lee sus­tained mas­sive neck and spinal in­juries, he had been in a wheel­chair. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion and ex-spe­cial ad­vis­er Jack Warn­er met all Lee's med­ical bills and sup­port­ed him in every way pos­si­ble with the Fi­fa al­so as­sist­ing.

And de­spite his brave ef­forts in the cou­ple years to fol­low, learn­ing to use a com­put­er de­spite lim­it­ed use of his hands and en­joy­ing foot­ball ac­tion on tele­vi­sion, Lee left us af­ter tak­ing ill and be­ing rushed to the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal.

"For you to achieve some­thing in life, it have to be meant for you. And on­ly one per­son, God, could achieve it for you. The doc­tors could on­ly do as much as med­ical-wise. The doc­tors say they can­not do it, but Je­sus is the on­ly one who can do it, " Lee said in a news­pa­per in­ter­view af­ter his in­jury. To date, sev­er­al lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ballers such as David Beck­ham and Steven Ger­rard have graced the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um which con­tin­ues to be play­ing field for many in­clud­ing some as­pir­ing to be a Trinidad and To­ba­go cap­tain like Lee.

Ip­swich boss hap­py with Scot­land

Re­tired na­tion­al for­ward Ja­son Scot­land came in for praise from Ip­swich Town man­ag­er Paul Jew­ell fol­low­ing his team's 1-1 draw with Southamp­ton on Tues­day. Scot­land has not been among the goalscor­ers in re­cent times but equal­ized five min­utes from time just when Jew­ell and com­pa­ny need­ed him. "It was a mag­nif­i­cent sub­sti­tu­tion," Jew­ell joked. "Ja­son Scot­land's been ter­rif­ic and when he's come on he's worked hard and he's works hard in train­ing. "Ja­son's been un­lucky. Ob­vi­ous­ly peo­ple talk about the con­tract sit­u­a­tion, but it's been noth­ing to do with that, it's be­cause Chops has done well. "I have to say Ja­son's pro­fes­sion­al­ism and his pos­i­tive at­ti­tude have been ter­rif­ic and I'm re­al­ly pleased for him. He's a valu­able mem­ber of our squad." Both Scot­land and team­mate Car­los Ed­wards are hop­ing to se­cure con­tract ex­ten­sions at Ip­swich. Jew­ell al­so re­vealed that he blocked Scot­land's move to Bris­tol City last month but added there was no dis­ap­point­ment as Scot­land may not have been hap­py join­ing a club strug­gling near the bot­tom of the stand­ings.

Bur­rell backs Webb for Con­ca­caf post

With the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Con­gress tak­ing place this week in Cu­ra­cao, Ja­maican foot­ball boss Cap­tain Ho­race Bur­rell is sup­port­ing Cay­man Is­lands FA Pres­i­dent Jeff Webb to re­place Jack Warn­er as Pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf. Con­ca­caf will elect a new pres­i­dent on May 23 when it stages a Con­gress ahead of the two-day Fi­fa Con­gress in Bu­dapest, Hun­gary. "I have de­cid­ed to throw my sup­port be­hind Webb," Bur­rell said. "He has asked for my sup­port, and hav­ing done a lot of work in the re­cent months I've de­cid­ed to give him that sup­port." Bur­rell, who was al­so seen as a pos­si­ble can­di­date for the re­gion's top job, fur­ther ex­plained: "It is very im­por­tant for some­one from the Caribbean Foot­ball Union to lead Con­ca­caf be­cause over the years we've dis­cov­ered that the Caribbean is a very di­verse com­mu­ni­ty in so far as the whole foot­ball de­vel­op­ment is con­cerned, and hav­ing a Caribbean per­son as head of Con­ca­caf would al­ways be a great help to the en­hance­ment of foot­ball through­out the re­gion." Hon­duras' foot­ball boss Al­fre­do Hawitt has been act­ing as pres­i­dent since last year. The next pres­i­dent will com­plete Warn­er's term, and Con­ca­caf mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions may nom­i­nate can­di­dates for the po­si­tion up to 60 days be­fore the Con­gress.

Eng­lish play­er talks of ex­pe­ri­ence

Eng­lish-born play­er Luke Gul­lick has told the Eng­lish Press that he had an amaz­ing time dur­ing his five-month spell with Adam's Con­struc­tion San Juan Jabloteh in the T&T Pro League. Gul­lick is now back with Eng­lish South­ern Pre­mier Di­vi­sion club Chip­pen­ham Town and was al­so train­ing with Con­fer­ence Pre­mier club New­port Coun­ty. "It was amaz­ing," Gul­lick told the Gazette and Her­ald about his time with Jabloteh, "Here is such a quick, fast tem­po but over in the Caribbean, it's still fast and strong but you just get that ex­tra two or three sec­onds on the ball be­cause they know when to press," he said. "For my de­but goal, I came off the bench and we were los­ing 4-1 (against T&TEC) with 20 min­utes to go but I got the equalis­er for 4-4. "Fi­nan­cial­ly and with things like my girl­friend be­ing over here, it was right to come back but I wouldn't rule out do­ing it again in the fu­ture. If you watch the games on tele­vi­sion, the stan­dard is like League Two or the Con­fer­ence." Gul­lick scored eight goals in 21 games for Jabloteh.

Mitchell nets for White­caps

Na­tion­al de­fend­er Car­lyle Mitchell scored a sec­ond half goal to help MLS club Van­cou­ver White­caps to a 3-0 win over Kansas City last Wednes­day in a pre­sea­son en­counter. Mitchell slot­ted home af­ter con­nect­ing with a low Jor­dan Har­vey cross. The for­mer Joe Pub­lic de­fend­er is vy­ing for a start­ing role for the White­caps in the up­com­ing MLS sea­son. Head coach Mar­tin Ren­nie says Mitchell and his team-mates have been mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for him to make his fi­nal call. "Every­one's work­ing to­geth­er and I think every­body's put-ting to­geth­er a re­al­ly good ar­gu­ment. It's go­ing to be a great prob­lem as a coach," said Ren­nie. Mitchell's club has been linked with a move for USA cap­tain Car­los Bo­cane­gra.

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for So­ca War­riors/TTFF