I’m proud of my charges

Sep 11, 2008 Sports

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Says Beacon U-14 Coach, Gordon ‘Ultimate Warrior’ Braithwaite

By Franklin Wilson
Head coach of the Beacon Football Club (BFC) Gordon ‘Ultimate Warrior’ Braithwaite says he is very proud of his under-14 team which won the just concluded Chubby League, their second title in as many years.

Last year, the competition which is organised by the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) and sponsored by Guyana Beverage Inc., was played at the under-13 level.

In an exclusive interview with Kaieteur Sport, Braithwaite, a former senior national captain, was also high in praise for stand in coach, Mark Goodridge who was at the helm up to the semi-final stage.

For the first phase of the competition which was played on a round-robin format, Braithwaite was invited to be part of the coaching panel for an annual summer camp run by the Stokely Vale Football Club of Tobago and organised by former National and Camptown coach, Desmond Alfred.

The junior Stokely Vale team won the 2007 edition of the Camptown New York under-15 tournament which was the 4th annual.

Braithwaite returned to Guyana one hour before BFC’s semi-final game against Thomas United on August 30, an encounter they won 3-0 on penalty kicks after a goalless stalemate in regulation time.

They went on to defeat Fruta Conquerors in the championship game again via penalty kicks (3-2) following an exciting 2-2 deadlock when regulation time expired. The champions ended the competition as the only unbeaten team, a proud record.

While acknowledging the good work of his charges while he was away, Braithwaite believes that their success hinged on the fact that they really played well as a team.

“These guys really train hard as a unit and they are friends so they have reaped the results from hard work. They are focused and I have a lot of faith in them.”

TEAM PLAY
Braithwaite, who stands out as one of Guyana’s most successful youth coaches, acknowledged that BFC has a good cadre of skilled and strong individual players, among them, captain Darren ‘Bo Bo’ Harris, Deon Alfred and Patrick Murray who was also overseas and joined his teammates from the semi-final stage of the competition.

Ultimate, credits their success to the good chemistry of the team. “They are friends with one another and I think this is a fitting example for our club and other clubs too, where a team does not have any individual star players but they compliment each other.”

The former Pele player remembered his days with the top club when the players were exposed to lots of social activities among them club nights when they intermingled with each other and had fun together, something which served them in good stead on the field.

“I think the Camptown senior team is benefitting form this sort of thing right now because their players have a very good relationship going among them.”

IMPROVEMENT OF TEAMS
This was evident during the course of the competition in a general sense. There are still lots of room for technical and tactical development but it was a notch higher than last year.

“I think all the teams showed improvement in this competition, Georgetown Football Club played a lot better, Thomas United had a good unit with some bigger guys from last year but I think the coaches have to work on getting the players stronger.

If they are under-14 now and eligible for under-15 qualifying tournaments next year they got to be much stronger to make the national team so they have to do some more work to get physically stronger.”

SOCIO ECONOMIC SITUATION MAKES IT TOUGH FOR COACHES
The ‘Ultimate Warrior’ continues to battle to impart proper skills into his players which he believes can serve them even off the field of play and make them better in life.

The former Queens College student believes that the current Socio Economic situation in Guyana presents a major challenge for clubs, more so his young team, the majority of his players coming from the Tiger Bay area.

“I coach for a social reason. The ground I train on is Independence Park (Parade ground) so we attract lots of players from the Tiger Bay area.

I use to miss them when I was in Tobago and these are players who would sometimes come to practice with bottles stashed in a corner and sometimes would even be cursing you know, is ghetto children.

But I think people need to try and help these youths a little more because things are tough, most of the people playing football are at the lower end of the economic strata, is poor people and I try to give these youths an opportunity to do something positive and don’t lime around the ghetto area seeing negativity.”

Braithwaite said he tries in his own way to keep them going as a unit by organizing tours for them to other parts of Guya

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