GYASI MER­RIQUE

Se­nior Re­porter

gyasi.mer­rique@cnc3.co.tt

Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) hold­er and for­mer Chair­man of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert, is lead­ing the calls for Dr Ed­ward ‘Ed­die’ Hart to be ho­n­oured via the com­ple­tion and re-ded­i­ca­tion of the Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah, Tacarigua.

Clement’s plea was made at the fu­ner­al ser­vice for Hart, which was held at the same well-known fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day.

“The large play­ing fields where we are here, op­po­site to where he has lived all his life, are ap­pro­pri­ate­ly called the Ed­die Hart Grounds. It would be fit­ting to have these fa­cil­i­ties here of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nat­ed – I am not sure if they are – but it is tra­di­tion­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed as the Ed­die Hart Grounds, and none of us here wants to see that changed.”

On De­cem­ber 12, 2024, Phase One of the up­grades, con­duct­ed joint­ly by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­COTT) and the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC), be­gan with the planned in­stal­la­tion of a new play­ing space, car park, toi­lets, and a larg­er pavil­ion. This phase was ex­pect­ed to last 18 months.

How­ev­er, for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Tu­na­puna Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Es­mond Forde said that work had sig­nif­i­cant­ly slowed since the change of gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the April 28, 2025, elec­tion.

“From what I un­der­stand, the con­trac­tor has been changed, and a new con­trac­tor has been put in place,” Forde ex­plained while speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at yes­ter­day’s fu­ner­al.

He added, “Some ba­sic work has start­ed, but again, not at the speed that we would like it at since it was ini­ti­at­ed.”

Pro­fes­sor Im­bert, who shared a close friend­ship with Hart that stretched back more than 40 years, said he would do every­thing with­in his pow­er to aid the project’s progress to­ward the de­sired out­come.

“We would like to see the pavil­ion built, some­thing that even in his dy­ing days he was look­ing for­ward to. And I promise that, whether it is done of­fi­cial­ly by the au­thor­i­ties, I would try my best to lead a team, even if we have to beg cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go and get the per­mis­sion of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion to build that pavil­ion and to have it ded­i­cat­ed to Dr Ed­ward George Phillip Hart.”

The sen­ti­ment was echoed by sev­er­al peo­ple gath­ered at yes­ter­day’s fu­ner­al, many of whom cred­it­ed Hart with rein­vig­o­rat­ing life in many of the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties through his pro­mo­tion of sport, and es­pe­cial­ly through the wild­ly pop­u­lar Ed­die Hart Foot­ball League. The League ran for over 40 years and is of­ten pin­point­ed as a vi­tal de­vel­op­ment path­way for youth.

One of the league’s prod­ucts and for­mer T&T foot­baller-turned-renowned youth coach, Michael Grayson, said, “Ed­die was what I would like to call a re­nais­sance man. Ed­die played foot­ball and coached foot­ball; he played crick­et and coached crick­et. He played pan, and he was a politi­cian. How many things can you do in one life?”

“You see, when this thing (fa­cil­i­ty) fin­ish here, (we would like to see) a big neon sign – Ed­die Hart Sta­di­um. I think that will be a last­ing mem­o­ry.”

Hun­dreds show up for Ed­die – the heart of Tacarigua

Hart’s fu­ner­al ser­vice was a melt­ing pot of peo­ple, both from pub­lic life and those of more com­mon means, which summed up the in­flu­ence of the man him­self.

Friends, fam­i­ly mem­bers, as­so­ciates and well-wish­ers packed the two large tents that were set up just to the east of where the main pavil­ion once stood.

Seat­ed to­ward the front of the ser­vice were for­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young, SC, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, MP for Arou­ca/Lopinot Mar­vin Gon­salves, MP for Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca Do­minic Ro­main, MP for Laven­tille East Chris­t­ian Birch­wood and MP for Diego Mar­tin North/East Colm Im­bert.

For­mer MPs Fos­ter Cum­mings, Fitzger­ald Hinds and Don­na Cox, as well as PNM stal­warts Joan Yuille-Williams and Ash­ton Ford, among sev­er­al oth­er mem­bers, were al­so in at­ten­dance to pay their re­spects to Hart.

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an al­so at­tend­ed, to­geth­er with a long list of for­mer na­tion­al and club foot­balling leg­ends from the 1970s on­wards, such as for­mer Strike Squad coach Ever­ald ‘Gal­ly’ Cum­mings, Ron La For­est, Hud­son Charles, An­cil El­cock, Gor­don Hus­bands, and Ren­wick Williams.

Hart’s son Ter­ence, who eu­lo­gised his fa­ther, per­haps put it best when he said, “The heart of Tacarigua is gone. But we will find a way to live with­out him.”

“Did you know Ed­die per­son­al­ly? If he were here, how many of you would be able to recog­nise him by name? An amaz­ing num­ber, re­al­ly. And that was a ma­jor dif­fer­ence be­tween Mr Hart and many oth­er pop­u­lar fig­ures. Pop­u­lar fig­ures in gen­er­al, you would recog­nise in a crowd, and you might know one or two things about them. The dif­fer­ence with Mr Hart was that he knew you back; he formed re­la­tion­ships with his peo­ple.”

Pro­fes­sor Im­bert de­scribed Hart as “a man of many parts. A rare in­di­vid­ual. A hu­man ar­chi­tect, one who built not grand ed­i­fices or mon­u­ments, but one who built our most pre­cious re­source – our peo­ple.”

Hart passed away on Jan­u­ary 4 at his home in Tacarigua. He was a for­mer Tu­na­puna Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Cul­ture, Cul­ture and Tourism, and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and Gen­der Af­fairs un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.