… 154 schools competing
TELECOMUNICATION service provider Digicel (Guyana) Incorporated yesterday for the second successive year, launched their nationwide Inter-Secondary School championships in the Savannah Room of the Guyana Pegasus Hotel, under the theme ‘Unite, Develop, Excel’.
In delivering brief remarks, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony lauded the sponsor for the initiative taken a year ago, while expressing his delight to see the age stratification that is being used in this year’s tournament, attracting some 154 schools.
“I remember that not so long ago, I was with the then Minister of Education Sheik Baksh at the Bourda cricket ground where we had the inaugural launch of this competition and at that time, we were studying how can we make it a calendar event and we got the commitment from Digicel.”
Addressing the audience which included Digicel’s Chief Executive Officer Gregory Deen, Marketing Officer Jacqueline James, Guyana Football Federation (GFF) General Secretary Noel Adonis and Chief Educational Officer Olata Sam along with other invited guests, Dr Anthony said sports has a role to play in the schools today.
“I heard from Lavern Fraser-Thomas. They analysed what took place last year and they took adequate steps to ensure there is improvement in this year’s tournament and I am sure that as in all events, one would like to see an improvement in quality.
“I am very pleased that they have decided on age stratification, so that we can have a level playing field and persons will not be intimidated by bigger-sized players coming at them on the field of play, while it would be exciting to see how the defending champions fare, since they have the age stratification,” stated Dr Anthony.
The Minister added, “Sports can play or in fact has a great role to play in the holistic development of anyone and for too long I think we don’t have many competitions at the school level in a structured way.
“We have cricket and athletics competitions where many schools participate, but football has been lagging for some time and I think this is the niche Digicel has been helping us to fulfil, and I am sure that from this tournament, we will see a number of national players emerging, which is very good.”
Dr Anthony told his audience that they should not look at this as just coming to a competition, but look at the physical education teachers in schools or persons who are responsible for physical education and the teams, to work with them to coach the teams in the right manner.
“As we develop improvement, one of the logical steps would be how do we get teachers or even part-time coaches to work with the various teams as that would be important as we move forward. We also have to look at not just the competition, but the development of the game as that is important.
“If we don’t work on the development of the game, it becomes a very ad-hoc procedure as when we are having a competition, we get the team together to go and play and it should not be that way. I think we should have a structured programme in place and by having this competition now as a calendar event, we can plan ahead and train to ensure our team give of their best.”
Prior to Dr Anthony delivering his brief remarks, Adonis charged the schools who will be competing this year, to do so in accordance with the Rules and Code of Conduct of the tournament put in place, as the GFF uses the tournament as a nursery for the national level.
Adonis said the GFF has also given the programme its full support, having endorsed it last year, giving it definitive attention this year, adding “football in schools play an integral part in the development of the sport in any country,” while saying the tournament has also added a new and revived element to football in Guyana.
According to Deen, last year’s tournament was being used as a trial run, while they opted to look at ways to improve the tournament over the years.
“Last year we said we probably won’t see the results at the higher level within the first five to 10 years, as when we looked at some of the tournaments they had in the rest of the Caribbean in terms of schools football, they were seeing the results in their national team, as they were having their tournament running for quite a longer time and before we started here in Guyana.
“For us at Digicel, it had to be a long-term commitment, if we were to make an impact in the future national team in Guyana. We at Digicel are 100% behind this tournament once again and I wish all the teams best of luck.”
Deen said his company is looking at decentralising the tournament once again and to this effect, teams from Georgetown will be travelling to places such as Waramadong to compete against those teams, as Digicel noticed from last year’s tournament, City teams were unaware of the location of some hinterland teams.
As an added incentive, Digicel will be offering to the first three finishers of the tournament, which will be played as an Inter-regional one before the national playoffs, $500 000, $300 000 and $200 000 which will go towards a school project of their choice.
Meanwhile, at the draw which was done by both James and Sam to decide the Regional winners who will do battle for a place in the national playoffs, the winner of Region 7 will take on winner of Region 1, Region 9 will go against Region 5 and Region 10 will oppose Region 8.
Teams from Regions 2, 3, 4, 6 and Georgetown, have already secured an automatic place in the quarterfinals of the tournament which kicks off next Friday at the Georgetown Cricket Club ground and will see defending champions Government Technical Institute (GTI) defend their crown.