Cayman Athletic coach Ernie ‘Gillie’ Seymour has had another eventful year in football.
The colourful character is never short of an opinion but his success where it matters most – on the pitch – confirms that love him or loathe him, Gillie knows how to get the best out of his players. Many of them boys trying to do a man’s job.
Cayman Athletic did well in the Under-13 division by making it to the semi-finals of the FA Cup. “Unfortunately, we lost on a sudden-death penalty to the League champions, Elite Sporting Club, who we drew 1-1 with and defeated 4-2 in the league,” said Gillie. “In the league championship we came fourth overall, not bad.”
In the Under-15s Cayman Athletic won the league title for the fourth year straight, going undefeated and were runners-up in the FA Cup to Academy after winning the FA Cup in the past three seasons.
In the U-17s, after being runners-up the previous season in the league and FA Cup Cayman Athletic won both competitions this time, remaining undefeated and also scored over 100 goals.
“The U-17 league and FA Cup was dedicated to one of our players, Justin ‘Gucci’ Henry who we tragically lost during the season. So far, for individual awards we have the leading goal scorers in each youth division – D’Andre Rowe U-13, Joshewa Frederick U-15, and Jamaal Seymour U-17.
“In the Premier division we achieved our target of remaining in the Premiership and were also successful in the men’s FA Cup by reaching the semis for the second year straight.
“Unfortunately, we did not make it to the final this year which we did last year. For a team made up mostly of our U-17 players we still got some good results which helped us to remain in the Premier and gave the youngsters some inspiration for the up coming season if we enter Cayman Islands Football Association’s competitions.
“We lost heavily to the Digicel Champions and last season’s league champions Elite, 10-1, in our first league game against them but rallied back in the second and third games to claim two draws.
“Against the league and FA Cup champions, Scholars International, we lost our first game of the season but held them to a draw in the second game and lost by a narrow margin in the third game.
“We also defeated the third placed team in the league, Bodden Town, in the FA Cup quarter-final. We also created excitement in the league by drawing our last game with Elite and bringing the league to the final games to decide the winner, which was Scholars.”
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