Milerock Coach Brian Joseph accepts game ball, praise God for success

Mar 27, 2011 Sports

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Basking in glory, Milerock FC Head Coach Bryan Joseph, as he reflected on the recent achievement announced – “This is historic for we, eh? We played with him yeah,” pointing to the owner of the losing top Surinamese football club Inter Moengo Tapoe, the former rebel military leader now member of the current Desi Buuterse Government, Ronnie Brunswick, who had joined Guyana’s Milerock in their celebration in the locker room and congratulated the Linden side.
He said, “I wish you good luck in your next game. I want to make contact with you and I think in December we will meet again.”
Brunswick, who had played the first half of the game, later admitted that “the better team won,” as he presented the football used in that historic clash to coach Joseph.
Moments earlier Milerock had just created history with a 2-1 win at the Andre Kamperveen Stadium in Suriname, not only for themselves, but for the mining town which never before produced a club at this level that was successful in any match, much less to advance in Caribbean Club championship.
The 2-1 Milerock victory, courtesy of goals by Collie Hercules in the 5th and youth defender Ryan Crandon in the 75th minutes, were enough to send them through after they lost their home tie 1-0 and, thus produced the first win in five tries by clubs coming from Linden.
Previously in Caribbean Club tournaments, Linden’s Christianburg FC in 1976 and Mackenzie YMCA FC played in 1977 and 1979 without any success, losing all their home and away encounters, numbering six in all, to the Dutch-speaking neighbour club sides Voowarts in 1976 and Robin Hood in 1977 and 1979 respectively.
Joseph related of the win after the game, “…it’s really invigorating for football in Linden. It’s a piece of history that was just created by a Linden team heading into the second round of a CFU tournament. It has never happened to a team out of Linden so we have just created some history and we are totally ecstatic about it.”
In fact, Milerock had produced the best performance at home against clubs at this level, albeit in a losing cause, when they went down 1-0 in the home game at the Mackenzie Sports Club ground in Linden. But Joseph maintained that before the second match in Suriname, “We know once we participated in the football match we have a chance. But one of the really outstanding things that have happened on this trip to Suriname is that a lot of the players believed in their God, and that God is Jesus Christ; and they believe as some of the players fasted, the favour of the Lord was upon us and we knew we couldn’t lose, that’s the mentality we went out with. We played hard and won the match and gave all praises to God.” The former national striker and Guyana Football Federation, National Footballer of the Year continued, “I think on the day of the game and even the day before, we spoke to the players a lot, we tried to inspire them. I felt as coach that the players asked me to give that inspirational speech on the day of the match. We did that. We also asked former outstanding national forward Collie Hercules to give some insights and at the end of that we felt that the team was inspired and ready; and we went out there and we executed. We won the game and that’s it. I am convinced that we were the better team and I still am convinced that we should have won the game in Guyana and the better team qualified to go forward.”
Looking at the game itself and the aura of playing in Suriname where overwhelmingly it was felt that Milerock would have suffered a resounding loss in that return fixture, Joseph noted: “Initially I thought this was going to be an easy game because of how the opportunities came but the fact that we didn’t convert them, I wasn’t too worried about it at that time, but as the game went on and we couldn’t find the back of the net, I began to get worried. Of course in games like that where you totally dominate you can end up on the losing side, but the guys stuck to the task and we called for patience and victory is going to come and that is exactly what happened. We stuck with it, but we gave up a goal in added on time but the important thing is that we have qualified for the second round.”
Now preparing for their first home game against the top Trinidad and Tobago club Defence Force at a venue to be named on April 10, Joseph acknowledged the support given in the first round saying, “We just say thanks, the financial support for this trip has been difficult to come by. Fortunately for us through the intervention of Mr. Odinga Lumumba, we were able to get $1M from the Government of Guyana. That directly influenced whether we could have gone on the return leg or not. We got it the day before we left for the game and once we got it, yes the tour was on. We came here, amidst all of that the players did not know what was going on and we got the victory. I hope that more support will come from the corporate community so we can go to the next stage and make it a reality.”
Captain of the winning Milerock club Marlon ‘Scary’ Maxius said in retrospect, “I am overwhelmed. It was something we thought we could achieve and we had our differences in putting ourselves together as brothers. In working hard it is a great achievement to the football world and to Linden and our fans. It was a well deserved victory. Collie Hercules and Kayode McKinnon added a boost to the motivation of the players and the youthful team. With Hercules up front and McKinnon and myself in defence it was a real boost with all that experience and it worked out for the best. The next step is to go back to the drawing boards and even though we won this game there are some flaws which we will work on. We have the ability to compete in this CFU competition.”
Manager of the Milerock side Claude Williams added, “We are hoping to get more financial help as this time around. We are looking to persons to give us whatever support they can give and we are coming at you hard because this is the next step as we have to go to the other round. We can only hope and pray that we get your support as we have confidence that we are going all the way once given the support.”

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