Youth is the focus! - H’View have started to rebuild

After struggling over the past two seasons to return to the upper echelons of the National Premier League, a territory they have managed to call home since the mid 1990s, Harbour View FC will be using the next two seasons to rebuild their senior men's programme, head coach Ludlow Bernard told STAR Sports.

Bernard says the current football climate, with the coronavirus pandemic, provided the Stars of the East with the opportunity to take a new approach, and fans will see that when they graze the pitch for the start of the 2020-21 season on November 14.

"We have been doing more load-shedding than anything. We are really in a rebuilding process. The content of our team will show our approach. We have a very young squad, and it is deliberately so because now, we figure it is the best time for us to make investments in the young players," Bernard explained.

According to Bernard, captain Nicholas Beckett and McKauly Tulloch are among a few senior players who will be featured in the new-look Harbour View team.

"We wanted to keep some of the senior players to provide guidance for the younger ones," he said.

Bernard outlines that Harbour View could also take the 'development and sell' approach that Cavalier SC have been championing in recent times as three of their outstanding youngsters - Peter-Lee Vassell, Tyreek Magee, and Norman Campbell - have taken up contracts overseas after spending a year in the senior ranks.

"In light of the current situation, it is probably prudent for us to operate that way (development and sell). After all, we aren't that well financed. Every year, we try to identify players who we are going to target and, hopefully, we can be compensated if a club picks them up, and eventually, that will put us in a position where we can re-establish ourselves in the league as year-to-year contender, but for now, Harbour View FC are rebuilding a team so by the time the 2022 season comes around, we will be serious contenders for the title," Bernard said.