NIGEL SI­MON

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.