It is with great sad­ness that mem­bers of the Cen­tral F.C. fam­i­ly heard of the pass­ing of one of the club's icon­ic play­ers, Ja­son Mar­cano, who died in a car ac­ci­dent on Thurs­day morn­ing aged 36.

Ja­son, or “Nel­ly” as he was af­fec­tion­ate­ly known, joined Cen­tral F.C. in Jan­u­ary 2013 af­ter spend­ing sev­er­al years at San Juan Jabloteh.

In his six sea­sons with The Sharks, Ja­son played in well over 100 pro­fes­sion­al games, scor­ing more than 40 goals while as­sist­ing in over 30 items. Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, Ja­son and his Cen­tral F.C. team­mates won 17 tro­phies in­clud­ing back to back Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onships and an un­prece­dent­ed three con­sec­u­tive TT Pro League ti­tles.

But the sta­tis­tics do not pay jus­tice to his re­al con­tri­bu­tion to pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball in T&T. As a play­mak­er, he had a rep­u­ta­tion of be­ing a mav­er­ick. He could turn noth­ing in­to some­thing and cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for his team which could turn a game or even win the match.

This nat­ur­al flair would bring the crowds to their feet. If sta­tis­tics were avail­able, they would show that Ja­son's ap­proach play con­tributed to many more goals- and vic­to­ries- than the num­bers re­veal.

But his love of the un­con­ven­tion­al lead to many frus­tra­tions from his coach­es. Not un­like Eng­land's Matt Le Tissier, Ja­son's cre­ativ­i­ty and de­sire to run with the ball went against the dis­ci­plined tac­tics of his coach­es. This may have been the rea­son that Ja­son on­ly rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad & To­ba­go on 12 oc­ca­sions when the pub­lic was con­vinced that he should have ap­peared more reg­u­lar­ly.

On the ball, Ja­son was in­cred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to dis­pos­sess. While he ap­peared to be all arms and legs, vir­tu­al­ly stum­bling through chal­lenge af­ter chal­lenge, he would re­tain pos­ses­sion un­til, in­evitably, he would be smashed to the ground by a frus­trat­ed de­fend­er. Ja­son was fouled mer­ci­less­ly and his unique high-pitched protests could be clear­ly heard from the stands. Yet Ja­son was im­mense­ly pop­u­lar with all play­ers, of­fi­cials and coach­es through­out the Pro League.

Cen­tral F.C. Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Brent San­cho said: “We are all deeply shocked by this news. It's nev­er easy to hear of a young man los­ing his life, but Ja­son was part of the Cen­tral F.C. fab­ric. He played a part in all of our suc­cess­es and his con­tri­bu­tion to team morale was im­mea­sur­able. Our sin­cere thoughts and prayers go out to Ja­son's wife, chil­dren, fam­i­ly and friends. T&T's pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball has lost a great en­ter­tain­er to­day.”

Daren Mo­ham­dal­ly of S.I.S., Cen­tral F.C.'s first club spon­sor, said, “Ja­son was such a like­able guy. I'm stunned by this news and my prayers go out to his young fam­i­ly. He em­bod­ied the spir­it of Cen­tral F.C. that made the club so suc­cess­ful. He was al­ways on hand to sup­port the club's com­mu­ni­ty projects with a smile, and his per­for­mances for the club will re­main in my mem­o­ry”

While his goals will be re­mem­bered, his smile will be eter­nal­ly missed.