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Sleeping giants Munro aim to end 60-year title drought
November 01, 2024
Munro College's first-year coach Kemar Ricketts said the team's main objective is to end the 60-year championship drought in this season's ISSA WATA daCosta Cup football competition.
A long-time kingpin formerly known as Potsdam College, the 168-year-old Munro won their last daCosta Cup in 1964, when they defeated Titchfield High School 4-1 in the final.
According to Ricketts, the team is going about the long haul to the title one step at a time.
"We are in the quarter-final stage now, which is one more step closer to what we want to achieve, which is ending that 60-year drought. In everything we want to achieve, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves."
Continuing, he said, "The boys are really putting in the work and they understand what I require from them and they are delivering. I am very demanding in terms of on and off the pitch."
The St Elizabeth-based school is first to win both the daCosta Cup, since its inception in 1950, and the Olivier Shield, symbol of all-island schoolboy football supremacy. They have won seven daCosta Cup titles and the most Olivier Shield titles (19) among rural high schools.
Over the years, they have produced some well-known players such as Nelson Christian Stokes, who played on the 1981 daCosta Cup team and was a member of the Jamaican bobsleigh team in 1988; Dr Dean Weatherly, a highly rated coach with the most success at Cornwall College, winning 10 of their 12 titles; Eddison 'Eddie' Hinds; Winston George Hutchinson, who captained the d'Cup team to several victories; and Ken Walton, who won three d'Cup titles.
However, it has been 17 years since Munro advanced to the daCosta Cup quarter-finals. Wednesday's dramatic 2-1 win over defending champions Clarendon College was their first against that institution in 24 years, and Saturday's 3-1 win over Cornwall College was their first against the Montego Bay-based school in over 40 years.
"The greatest part of it is that it is organic. It is not something we set out to do from day one, it just happens as we go along. From the start of the season, we wouldn't have been looking at all on these records and saying we want to end the drought; it is a wonderful feeling," Ricketts said.
Ricketts said the focus of their programme is to set the discipline as the foundation.
"We knew if we could get the discipline right we could achieve great things. I don't believe you can achieve anything without discipline. Whether it is your attitude or how you approach the game, it is paramount that we get that part active. Separate and apart from that, the positional-based philosophy is new to the team and there has been a good reception," he shared.
"Our aim is to create an identity so people can identify us. When you think of Clarendon, Glenmuir or George's, there is a specific identity that comes with these teams," he analysed.
In this year's daCosta Cup, Munro advanced from their respective groups as winner at the first and second rounds.
"We have seen a rise from a lot of the old boys and the fan base. The reception has been very well, and we encourage it and want others to come on board. It is very important because they are the 12th man behind the team. We need that kind of support to push the team even further," Ricketts said.
