The Cote ce Cote la Trinidad & Tobago Dictionary defines a "Cattle Boil" as "a small swelling near the eye, said to have arisen as punishment for taking something back that was given as a gift." If this piece of folklore is correct, many of those who work in the Mayor's Office should be wearing soft-candle patches on their affected eyes. As I learned last Saturday morning that the Princess Building Hockey Ground, officially gifted to the Trinidad & Tobago Women's Hockey Association in 1968 by Mayor Edward Taylor for its exclusive use, with permission for Bishop Anstey High School to practise on it, was taken back by City Hall, without notification, "because the City Corporation's Sports Club needed somewhere."
For the first time in years a Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs was attending the formal opening of a hockey season, last week-end. The Honourable Roger Boynes actually caught the officers of the Trinidad & Tobago Hockey Board off guard when he arrived for the 8.30 a.m. opening of the Schools' Hockey Season at St Mary's College Ground on Saturday. The dedicated Minister was again present to officially open the Men and Women's 2002 Hockey Season the very next morning, Sunday.
For the schools, it was a lack lustre opening because out of a total of 20 registered schools, only nine turned up. The schools, which have not had a league tournament for the past two years, were obviously unprepared, there were no smart uniforms with all socks worn at the same height, nor jerseys neatly tucked into skirts or pants. And so the march past never did come to pass. Whereas last Tuesday the schools cricket season got off to a rousing start with nattily attired cricketers taking part in a march past. But then this is a sport which could produce two West Indies players, Mervyn Dillon and Brian Lara, at an opening, and a Power-Gen sponsored competition.
Garvin Francis Lau, president of the Hockey Board, expressed "disappointment at the absolute lack of principals and teachers who are involved in schools' hockey. The executive of the Board cannot run schools' hockey by themselves. Schools hockey has to be run by the schools who will take into consideration exams and other issues. The schools must get back involved in their hockey, they must have somebody in the school willing to do what is necessary to see about their own business with technical assistance from our executive."
And continued his appeal to the schools: "The students may not all make national players but there may be some good umpires as it is time that school hockey must be umpired by people in the schools, and also some very good administrators. It is all part of the development process which is not going to be easy, nothing is easy, but I think if we start moving in a particular direction, with time, it will come. We do have a lot of talented players but lack proper development programmes. The Board has a strategic plan in place and will try and achieve so much in each year, such as, more facilities, umpires and technical people as we expand our player base."
While the new Minister, who obviously already has a feel of what is needed, has promised to support the Trinidad and Tobago Hockey Board in its quest to stop declines in the number of club teams and registered players particularly in the development programmes. "The case for the latter was supported by the fact that the hockey facility is situated in Tacarigua and most hockey-playing schools in Trinidad and Tobago are located in Port of Spain and environs."
The Minister had suggestions for an approach which will bring greater satisfaction to all concerned. "First it seems that we may be best placed to ensure spread and growth in schools hockey and by extension this sport, by placing greater emphasis on using the abundance of indoor spaces available for the introduction of this discipline in most secondary schools."
However, Mr Mayor, hockey will need to have back the Princess Building Ground in which many of us former members of the women's executive/association had invested much time and money. And if the Minister has any say in the matter, it will happen: "Success of such an initiative (as stated above) will provide greater justification for the placement of low-cost, sand-based hockey turfs, not only at Princess Building grounds as suggested, but at several strategic locations across Trinidad and Tobago. I hold the view that many more Secondary School students may have an interest and the potential to become good hockey players and administrators."
A very disturbed Francis Lau has told Mayor Murchison Brown "one of the challenges we have in development of the sport is that we do not have proper facilities in the Port of Spain area in which to play hockey and it is expensive for schools to go to the artificial surface in Tacarigua so that we are willing to take any other location in the same area to put down a multi-purpose surface which can be shared with other sports."
"As the Minister pointed out, the majority of schools involved in hockey are located in Port of Spain and its environs. As it stands the ground at Tacarigua does not assist in the total development of the sport as was anticipated. Although it has helped prepare our teams better for when they go outside."
Yet there has not been any great degree of success to this time at international level which Francis Lau feels is the result of "our culture" where as a people our clubs come first. "It does not only happen in hockey, if your club has nobody in national training, there is no interest. Our culture must change so that national training must be our pride and joy. We must do things to ensure national training blossoms."
What is the new Hockey Board doing to achieve more success in the development of the sport? "Starting with the school, we must have somebody in each school with an interest in the sport and a lot of schools just don't, so there has to be a more direct approach to principals. A FIH coaching programme is being planned for sometime later this year at Level 1 and also an umpires training programme" says Francis Lau, who also sees another nail in the hockey coffin in that parents are channelling their children towards football because of the scholarship programmes abroad.