PETRA Organisation was hailed for having a very successful year in 2013, promoting Schools football at all age groups, in keeping with its mandate to foster the development of the game at the schools level.
Yesterday, the organisation launched its second Annual Milo-sponsored Under-20 Schools football tournament. Twenty-four high schools in Georgetown will vie to see who could not only dethrone defending champions St George’s High, but also lift the tournament’s first prize of $500 000, which will go to their school.
Petra Organisation director Troy Mendonca revealed his entity’s profound joy to once again give the schools in the capital city a chance to showcase their talents.
Mendonca mentioned that in the Digicel Schools football tournament, none the city teams had reached the final, except for the first year, after which, Christianburg/Wismar Secondary of Linden won back-to-back titles.
The Linden-based school also clinched the Kashif and Shanghai Schools championship, but Mendonca did, however, remarked that St George’s High did manage to finish fourth and felt that the Milo tournament serves as an important tool to help bring the city schools on par with their other counterparts.
“Back in my time, of course (then I was representing Linden) we had players like Deon Barnwell and those guys in Georgetown that we used to compete against and it used to be fun then, because Georgetown always had great teams because they played a lot of tournaments.
Now it’s totally different. The other areas are moving way ahead and as such we feel that this tournament should be taken seriously by the schools, if they want to really match up with the others,” Mendonca said.
Meanwhile, Milo brand representative Renita Sital expressed her profound joy at having the Sports nutrition drink aligned once again with the competition. She added that Milo would be looking to play a major role in this year’s tournament which seeks to also change the lives of youths through sports.
This year, the tournament will see the Ministry of Health as one of its partners and Deputy Permanent Secretary Trevor Thomas said that they are happy to be part of a tournament that seeks to impart knowledge to youths via the sport of football.
The tournament kicks off on February 15 and concludes on April 5, with matches being played exclusively at the Ministry of Education ground, formally known as Softball ground. Games will be played every Saturday and Sunday, starting at 11:00hrs.