El So­cor­ro Youth Move­ment (EYM) af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as ‘Mi­co’ are re­main­ing fo­cused on the youth.

Be­ing a young pres­i­dent, on­ly aged 30, Is­mahieel Ali is putting out ef­forts to­wards the younger play­ers in the Pre­mier 2 (North) Di­vi­sion, but he wants more to be done to pro­tect the play­ers and teams from the big­ger clubs.

Ali ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia Sports, that af­ter groom­ing, coach­ing, and prepar­ing play­ers for many years, top clubs can sim­ply come and lure the play­ers away, promis­ing them play­ing time in the first team with a Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) spot in view.

Ali said, “Some­thing must be done to pro­tect the young play­ers.”

Al­though he ad­mit­ted that ul­ti­mate­ly it is the play­er’s choice.

Ali was elect­ed pres­i­dent of the club last Fri­day un­op­posed, be­com­ing one of the youngest pres­i­dents in its his­to­ry. He was joined by sev­en more mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive, sec­re­tary Shameer Mo­hammed who is al­so the head coach of the team, trea­sur­er Aaron King, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (PRO) Ryan In­nis, vice trea­sur­er/vice sec­re­tary Neal Has­sim, and trustees Shari­da Mo­hammed and Idrees Mo­hammed.

Based on Bound­ary Road, El So­cor­ro, the com­mu­ni­ty-based club pro­gressed from North Zone Crick­et Coun­cil, bat­tling teams such as Gleno­ra’s, Sweet Re­venge, and Ebony.

They are earnest­ly look­ing for­ward to the 2023 sea­son, hav­ing on­ly played 40 over and 20 over match­es in 2022, af­ter a two-year ab­sence be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“The up­com­ing sea­son gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to sta­bilise the team, be­cause for the last cou­ple years, we’ve lost key play­ers and we are al­so look­ing for more youth, we have a cou­ple of un­der-19s and un­der-17s we are look­ing to bring up in the first team,” Ali ex­plained.

The pres­i­dent added these play­ers have been knock­ing on the door of the na­tion­al youth teams.

Ali is get­ting his club ready for a pre-sea­son camp, led by coach Shameer Mo­hammed, ahead of the 2023 sea­son. As the coach would be prepar­ing the team, the ex­ec­u­tive of the club will be putting their pen to pa­per and work out a frame­work for the up­com­ing sea­son and be­yond.

Ac­cord­ing to the pres­i­dent, the first year is fo­cused on sta­bal­is­ing the club, es­pe­cial­ly, re­turn­ing from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, be­fore they ac­tu­al­ly chal­lenge for pro­mo­tion in the next year.

Ali is call­ing on lo­cal busi­ness­es in San Juan and en­vi­rons to in­vest in a club that is seen as the pin­na­cle of what grass­roots crick­et rep­re­sents; that is in­vest­ing in the youths of the com­mu­ni­ty.