Its sad to read of calls for the removal of Coach Carl Brown after such a promising start to the revival of football in Cayman and congratulations are in order for CIFA and the CI Govt. Sports Ministry and corporate sponsors for the relatively successful World Cup campaign.
I have been an unforgiving critic of CIFA in the past, with legitimate reason and there are many others who have shared my opinions, although probably more hesitant to voice them, so it is only fair to give credit when it is due.
To put things in perspective, at the end of the 1995 Shell Cup (now Digicel Cup), the national Championship for the Caribbean football nations of CONCACAF, the Cayman Islands were ranked the fourth best team in the Caribbean, having reached the semi-finals of that year’s competition and having beaten Jamaica for the first time ever in a FIFA-sanctioned competition the year before (1994).
At that time, Cayman was at its pinnacle of football and it had always been my opinion that Cayman should have embraced a more cooperative relationship with Jamaican football rather than seeing itself as a legitimate competitor to Jamaican football, which Cayman, despite winning one very important game, has never and probably will never, be.
Where I have had a problem with CIFA is that CIFA did not seek to build on the successes of 1994 and 1995 when Cayman had its best-ever crop of potentially professional- standard players, a combination of the top-level veterans who had played for years at a high level and the new generation that had learned from us, players like Gary Whittaker, Carlos Welcome, George ‘LuLu’ Smith, Richard Flores and so many others, that Cayman was spoilt for riches in football talent at the time. The only way forward at that time would have been for CIFA to begin to move the game forward to a semi-professional level and take it from there.
That has never happened and the depletion of the talent pool and playing standards has been the obvious results. Not many people choose to remember and pay respect to the fact that Caymanian football was represented at the 1998 World Cup in the person of Ian ‘Pepe’ Goodison, a top Jamaican player with family ties to Cayman, who was only picked for Jamaica after he had had a sterling playing career in Cayman’s then Division 1 league for Yobbo Rangers FC and FC International.
No mention or credit was ever given to ‘Pepe’ by CIFA, to my memory but ‘Pepe’ is now a football legend in Jamaica and CONCACAF and much loved by the Tranmere Rovers fans.
CIFA chose to re-invent the wheel instead of building on a solid foundation and thus lost the respect and support of a lot of football veterans, myself included, who still had much to offer the game in the Cayman Islands.
It would be unfortunate if CIFA were to make the same mistake again and not persevere with Carl Brown and his programme.
It will take many years for the standard of Caymanian football to again reach anything like it once was and to match that of the competing nations that Cayman will face.
Cayman’s football public should embrace their team, be patient with all the hard work being done by CIFA and Carl Brown and get ready to make their mark in the Digicel Cup, which is where any realisitc improvement should be judged and be proud that the Cayman Islands had a reasonably successful World Cup campaign that bodes well for the future.
Ricardo Tatum
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