Inter Guiana Club C/ships served its purpose

Jun 29, 2011 Sports

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Mediocrity has no place at this level – Alpha Head Coach Dover

By Franklin Wilson
Alpha United’s less than attractive performance at the 4th edition of the Inter Guiana Clubs Championships which brings together the top clubs from French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana has been dubbed ‘Mediocre’ by Head Coach of the Club, Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover.

Alpha, which will represent Guyana at the CONCACAF Club Championships in less than a month, the first local club side to reach this level, lost their three games in French Guiana; 0-3 to 2011 winner US Matoury, 10-11 on penalty kicks after a 3-3 regulation time deadlock to Suriname’s Inter Moengotapoe and 1-3 to the other French side Gelder de Kourou.
Dover was unrelenting in expressing his dissatisfaction at the lack of application by a team that was missing a number f its regular players who are currently playing with Team Guyana in the Digicel Caribbean Cup in New York, USA.
Dover is of the view that this group of players should have taken the opportunity to prove their worth and represent the club and country with pride and dignity.
The long serving coach was quick to point out that this was the first time in his coaching career at the National or club level that a team under is charge would have competed outside of Guyana without winning at least one game.
“This was an inconsistent performance from a group of ‘so-called’ professional players by local standards. These young men need to understand that at this level such mediocrity has no place and the elementary mistakes that these guys made in all three games I cannot comprehend why such mistakes can continue to manifest itself at this level.”
The former Beacon player reminded that the club thought it best to give the exposure to the young players despite the club President Odinga Lumumba being a bit hesitant in sending a depleted side.
“I don’t even want to use the word ‘depleted’ because this is Alpha United. We persuaded Mr. Lumumba to participate in the tournament so that we can give the exposure to these players so that they can get valuable experience. But it turned out to be a disaster in terms of the performance and inconsistency.”
Dover stressed that given that fact that Alpha will be participating in the CONCACAF tournament shortly, it was a travesty to see the players not being able to give a performance to make the club feel vindicated in investing by giving them the relevant exposure.
“It is very disgusting to even talk about it. I do hope these players do some critical analyzing of their performances so that they can come back stronger and do the things needed to give a better account of going ahead.”
The only player in the Alpha United team who tasted victory in the Inter Guiana Club Championship is Captain Anthony ‘Awo’ Abrams who won with Suriname team Leo Victor when the Surinamese hosted back in 2009.
Alpha United, on the strength of their dominance at the local level here have been Guyana’s representative at all of the tournaments to date; the Guyana Defence Force was the other club which competed when Guyana hosted last year.
The leading Club Coach complimented the French Teams for a solid performance throughout the tournament which saw them taking the first and second place trophies and the winning prize of US$2,000.
“They were very organised; disciplined; fit, and this is what has to be done at this level in order to be successful. Even the Suriname team showed some amount of consistency in their discipline and fitness.”
Dover, who also had a stint at T&T Pro League side Caledonia AIA said that he learnt from the experience in French Guiana and hopes that his players are more committed going forward, if not they must begin to think about moving on.
“I think the time has come for players to come to the realization that if they cannot step up to the plate to properly prepare for international football mentally and otherwise, the best thing for them to do is leave the game.
There is no shortcut to success and there is no way we’re going to continue with this kind of attitude and focus and be successful at any level even in Guyana.”
It was noted that teams the caliber of the Guyana Defence Force, Sunburst Camptown, Milerock, Topp XX, Rosignol United and Pele among others who will capitalize on the shortcomings of teams whose players are not serious and committed about being in pristine shape for competition.
“Once this gap starts to close there will certainly be a transition in who rules football in Guyana. Simply put, football at any level, you must be properly prepared especially mentally in order to be successful. Lack of commitment can no longer be tolerated.”
Too often Dover emphasized, players demonstrate an attitude which can be interpreted that they are owed by someone and not wanting to work for what they want.
“We cannot continue this was, so I think the onus is on the players to be serious and honest in doing their personal work to bring themselves at a level so that when they come to the club they are ready for the process of fine tuning to compete and perform at the expected level of competiveness – being more hungry to give a proper performance.”
Looking ahead to the CONCACAF competition, it is not certain when and if the current Alpha players in the USA will return including first choice Captain Howard Lowe, Abassi McPherson, Nigel Codrington, Dwight Peters, Dwain Jacobs and Devon Millington.

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