JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, March 3, 2025

Pres, Naps clash in SSFL Premier curtain raiser

by

907 days ago
20220908
From left, Keiron Edward, Ascension representative, Merere Louis Gonzalez, SSFL president, Dr Nyan Gasby-Dolly, Minister of Education, Trudy Louison, First Citizens Bank representative, Denis Latiff, Tiger Tanks CEO and Anthony Lovelace, Coca Cola representative during the media launch of the Secondary School Football League in the Ato Boldon Stadium in Balmain, Couva, yesterday.

From left, Keiron Edward, Ascension representative, Merere Louis Gonzalez, SSFL president, Dr Nyan Gasby-Dolly, Minister of Education, Trudy Louison, First Citizens Bank representative, Denis Latiff, Tiger Tanks CEO and Anthony Lovelace, Coca Cola representative during the media launch of the Secondary School Football League in the Ato Boldon Stadium in Balmain, Couva, yesterday.

Daniel Prentice

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

South Zone duo and bit­ter long-time ri­vals, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do and Na­pari­ma Col­lege will clash in the in­au­gur­al Tiger Tank Cup on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 9 at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, from 4 pm to ush­er in the re­vamped 2022 sea­son of the Tiger Tank Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League.

Tiger Tanks will be the main spon­sor of this year’s SS­FL, tak­ing over from Ja­maican-based sports tele­vi­sion net­work, Sports­max.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, a five-year agree­ment be­tween the SS­FL, Dig­i­cel, and Sports­Max was sched­uled to con­clude in 2020 be­fore the in­ter­ven­tion of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic threw every­thing in­to a tail­spin.

Un­der Tiger Tanks, the league is set to be well-served, in­clu­sive of uni­form pro­vi­sion and brand­ing, prizes, and the broad­cast­ing of match­es for all the di­vi­sions, in­clu­sive of the Pre­mier­ship, Cham­pi­onship, and all the low­er di­vi­sions.

Speak­ing at the launch of the new sea­son at the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion’s Tech­ni­cal Cen­tre at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um yes­ter­day, SS­FL pres­i­dent Merere Gon­za­les, pres­i­dent of the SS­FL said they were hop­ing to ne­go­ti­ate for match­es in all di­vi­sions in the SS­FL to be broad­cast­ed ei­ther LIVE or shown de­layed on tele­vi­sion, which is an ini­tia­tive that would al­low all stu­dents to use the footage to re­ceive schol­ar­ships or for their per­son­al use.

Gon­za­les re­flect­ing on the ab­sence of SS­FL ac­tion for the past two years as well as look­ing ahead to the new cam­paign said, “In an en­dem­ic stage like that of the covid-19 I’m very mind­ful of the sit­u­a­tion, and I’m very heart­ened as the pres­i­dent for the much an­tic­i­pat­ed, long-await­ed, high­ly com­pet­i­tive, very much en­ter­tain­ing and flam­boy­ance of the foot­ball tal­ent that will be dis­played by all stu­dent-ath­lete of the re­spec­tive schools in T&T.”

“As a re­spon­si­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion in that of the SS­FL, it is of para­mount im­por­tance that we un­der­stand first and fore­most that our main pri­or­i­ty is to en­sure the pro­mo­tion, de­vel­op­ment, ad­vance­ment, nur­tur­ing, sup­port and guid­ance of our stu­dents.”

“And while they are en­gaged in a sport­ing dis­ci­plined and in this case foot­ball, we will al­so be re­spon­si­ble, and pro­fes­sion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion and con­tin­ue to cre­ate this plat­form for them to show­case their tal­ent,” end­ed Gon­za­les.

Mul­raine takes over at Naps

Na­pari­ma Col­lege won the last edi­tion of the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion crown in 2019, their fourth in six years un­der An­gus Eve, the se­nior and un­der-20 na­tion­al men’s coach, while the Shawn Coop­er-coached Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege cap­tured their first na­tion­al In­ter-Col crown in 44 years when they lift­ed the ti­tle in 2019 ti­tle beat­ing San Juan North Sec­ondary, 2-1 in the de­cider.

For Na­pari­ma, a lot has changed in the tech­ni­cal de­part­ment with for­mer na­tion­al play­ers Travis Mul­raine (head coach) and An­tho­ny Sher­wood (as­sis­tant) now at the helm of the reign­ing SS­FL Pre­mier cham­pi­ons for the new cam­paign while Coop­er, who was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed na­tion­al Un­der-17 men’s coach will be as­sist­ed, Dun­stan Williams.

The new for­mat of the 16-team Pre­mier Di­vi­sion which gets go­ing on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 14 will see the teams di­vid­ed in­to two groups of eight teams for one round of round-robin com­pe­ti­tion, that’s is sev­en match­es for each team, at the end of which the top two in each pool will ad­vance to the crossover semi­fi­nals on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 21 ahead of the fi­nal four days lat­er.

Both the semi­fi­nals and fi­nal are slat­ed for ei­ther the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, or the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

This year’s SS­FL sea­son will be the first to be held since 2019 af­ter the 2020 and 2021 sea­sons were post­poned due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, and will al­so

The 16-par­tic­i­pat­ing schools will see Group A com­prise Na­pari­ma Col­lege, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, Cara­pichaima East Sec­ondary, Spey­side High School, St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, Fa­ti­ma Col­lege, Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, and St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, while Group B will fea­ture San Juan North Sec­ondary, Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, Ch­agua­nas North Sec­ondary, Mal­ick Sec­ondary, East Mu­cu­rapo Sec­ondary, Moru­ga Sec­ondary, Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, and Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege (San F’do) with the open­ing round of match­es set for Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 14 with kick­off at 4 pm.

Ac­cord­ing to Gon­za­les, the 2022 SS­FL sea­son will see com­pe­ti­tion in the boys’ and girls’ cham­pi­onship di­vi­sions as well while due to some im­me­di­ate con­straints, the pre­mier­ship di­vi­sion girls’ will un­for­tu­nate­ly not be able to ma­te­ri­alise this year.

How­ev­er, a new as­pect of the SS­FL league will see for a short pe­ri­od the or­gan­i­sa­tion of a “pi­lot project” spon­sored by FI­FA to en­gage more girls to be in­volved in foot­ball, and there­fore we will be in the em­bry­on­ic stages look­ing to­ward hav­ing a very short ver­sion or at least pro­vid­ing an­oth­er plat­form for the Girls 13 and Un­der Di­vi­sion with the ex­pec­ta­tion that for 2023 sea­son it will be more es­tab­lished as an of­fi­cial di­vi­sion with the SS­FL.

Min­is­ter Gads­by-Dol­ly in­vites par­ents to sup­port the play­ers

Gon­za­les al­so not­ed that for the 2022 sea­son, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly has been made pa­tron of the SS­FL.

With re­gards to the de­mo­tion of teams from the SS­FL, the two bot­tom-placed teams will be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly rel­e­gat­ed and will be joined by the losers of the play­off be­tween the two teams to fin­ish sec­ond from bot­tom in their re­spec­tive groups.

At the same time, the win­ners of the five Cham­pi­onship Boys Di­vi­sions which will com­prise six teams team will then con­test a “Big-Five” round-robin se­ries at the end of which the top three fin­ish­ers will gain pro­mo­tion to the 2023 Pre­mier Di­vi­sion.

Gads­by-Dol­ly in her ad­dress re­flect­ed on her days as a sup­port­er of St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary “Green Ma­chine” said she re­mem­bered the joy and pas­sion and ex­cite­ments of In­ter-Col.

Ad­mit­ting that her chil­dren were al­so an­tic­i­pat­ing the sea­son and al­ready had match­es ear­marked to watch Gads­by-Dol­ly added, “I know this sea­son is go­ing to be a bumper sea­son and it’s very im­por­tant that it is be­cause we are re­cov­er­ing and re­bound­ing from what was a forced cur­tail­ment of all our ac­tiv­i­ties by covid-19 and the pan­dem­ic, and that ex­pe­ri­ence did more than sim­ply closed schools and stopped sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

“In many cas­es, it dis­rupt­ed the spir­it of the promise of our stu­dents and it is more than just a build­ing clos­ing be­cause when a school clos­es it’s not juts a build­ing but an area of re­lease for some stu­dents, it is an area where some stu­dents are able to so­cialise with their friends and re­lease the frus­tra­tions of home.

“It’s an area where they can look for­ward to their progress as stu­dent-ath­letes as per­sons in the cul­tur­al sec­tor and as stu­dents who are as­pir­ing to dif­fer­ent ca­reers, and it threw our young peo­ple in­to dis­ar­ray al­most be­cause it was such a time of un­cer­tain­ty.

“And I’m for one very ex­cit­ed about the fact that our stu­dents are back out to school first­ly, chal­lenges notwith­stand­ing and I’m equal­ly glad that we are able to come back to the days of In­ter-Col and what that means to our stu­dents,” stat­ed Gads­by-Dol­ly.

Among the oth­er speak­ers at the launch were Ke­iron Ed­wards, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the As­cen­sion Group of Trinidad, Lau­rence Seep­er­sad, SS­FL As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of Op­er­a­tions, An­tho­ny Lovelace, Se­nior Brand Spe­cial­ist at Co­ca-Co­la Caribbean Bot­tlers, and De­nis Lat­iff, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er/Own­er Tiger Tanks Trinidad Lim­it­ed.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored