… GUYOIL School league; ExxonMobil U-14 were high points

WITH 2018 winding down, the Petra organisation has recorded another successful year, according to co-director Troy Mendonca.

The co-director was speaking yesterday when the organisation unveiled additional lights, a Honda lawn mower and a Stihl brush cutter at the Ministry of Education ground.

“We understand the importance of a very good facility and also we understand the challenges that facilities, that sports in general face, in this country with limited resources,” he said.

“The vision that we have for the ground is a facility, which can accommodate 500 persons, with proper washroom facilities, proper changing-room facilities and proper playing surfaces that are open generally to sports.”

He noted that Petra is currently looking towards getting a stand rebuilt for the development and that come next year, there will be significant progress towards this.

CLOSER COLLABORATION WITH GFF

The Petra organisers spoke highly of their collaboration with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and, moving ahead, they aim to make that closer in 2019.

“The GFF has its challenges and one of the areas that we want to address is the issue of coaching, because a lot of times most schools use their Physical Education teacher and that is challenging.”

“From a footballing aspect, we would really want to go after some kind of funding for coaches to be assigned to schools with the assistance of the GFF.”

He noted that the body has been in talks with the federation to allow schools in the sub-associations and federations to be more vibrant; adding that corporate Guyana has a part to play there.

“It is difficult for any association or federation to actually run football at all these levels. When you look at what happens in other countries, clubs and associations or affiliates play their part and not the governing body in terms of actual execution of tournaments.”

He noted that they are in discussion with other ‘interest groups to share advice on making things more vibrant.

“One of the areas that we really need to get correct is the timings in terms of preparations of teams in terms of engagements of the teams for different tournaments and we really want to see that transition from Under-11 to Under-14 to Under-18.”

HIGH POINTS FOR 2018
“I can’t remember in my entire life or even as a footballer when we’ve had a league football competition at the school level and really, we would want to have the 12 best teams in the country compete in that tournament.”

All that glitters is not gold, Mendonca opined, adding that the logistics behind the tournament was one which featured several back and forth discussions.

Mendonca said, “Another highpoint was being able to host the Boys and Girls tournament (with the help of ExxonMobil) which is a gap that we have been trying to bridge over the last couple of years – U-11 and U-18.”