Godfrey Stewart loses players through disciplinary action

Western Bureau:

With the vast majority of last year's team unavailable for this year's campaign, Leford Parce, the coach of former daCosta Cup champions Godfrey Stewart High School, is not bubbling with the usual enthusiasm going into the 2017 schoolboy football season, which will start today.

In fact, Parce believes that the task will be quite tedious after losing most of the fifth-form players due to disciplinary action taken against them by the school's administration. According to him, the players in this year's team are untried players who do not have either Under-16 or Under-14 experience under their belts. However, he is confident that both midfielders Tyriel Williams and captain Alvarez Cooper will have a breakout season this year.

"We are going to be having a pretty young team because we have not retained any of our older players from last season," said Parce.

Parce noted that because of financial constraints, their preseason has not been what he would have wanted. However, he said that what they have managed to do has been of great benefit. He said that he hopes, the games they have managed to get under their belt will prove to be enough.

"We started late, so we had only four weeks of camp preparation," said Parce. "However, we have been unbeaten in all our preseason games, so I am hoping that it will help the guys going into our first game on Monday."

According to Parce, his primary goal is to get through the first round and then take it from there through the other rounds. He believes that if they get through the first round, the team would have gained enough experience and confidence to do well going into the other stages of the competition.

"Our first goal is to go on to the second round. What this will do is give the guys the necessary competitive games to gain experience," said Parce.

"After the first round, we should be able to compete because it's a good bunch of guys. It is just that experience lacking."

Godfrey Stewart High will kick off their season on Monday with a Group D fixture against Black River High. The other teams in the group are Grange Hill High, Little London High, the Manning's School, and Petersfield High.