The New Amsterdam Primary Secondary School Football Foundation (NAPSS) is gearing up for its inaugural awards ceremony and secondary schools football tournament next month secretary of the organization Petra Forde told Stabroek Sport.
According to Forde, eight secondary schools will participate in a specially arranged tournament to mark the occasion.
Each participating team has been allocated a coach and training has intensified for the event which, along with an awards ceremony, dinner and dance is expected to revive sporting relations in the ancient county.
It was some 39 years ago that a football team from the New Amsterdam/Canje area took on all and sundry to win the Guyana Primary Schools football tournament.
According to Avia Lindie, the 1970 team defeated the mighty Georgetown team in the final of the Guyana Primary Schools Football tournament.
“This event is a way of honouring the 1970 champions as well as those others who have made sterling contributions to football in the Ancient County,” Lindie told Stabroek Sport.
That team included former national player Roger Alphonso, Martin and Granton Inniss, Neil Humphrey, Sam Jones and former national cricketer Hubern Evans.
Forde, sister of former national player Adrian Forde, told Stabroek Sport that the idea of the NAPSS 2009 Cup was Alphonso’s brainchild.
“Right now there is a head coach and each of the schools has a coach attached to them,” Forde explained.
She added that already a quantity of footballs, football bibs; trophies and uniforms have already arrived in the country.
Alphonso played on the Guyana national team at 16 and later went on to attend Clemson University.
While the vision might have been Alphonso’s, the driving force behind the group’s movement is Marcia Paul-Ross, sister of former national football and author James Paul.
Other members include Gladstone Prass who serves as president while Granton Inniss, like Alphonso, is a vice president.
Lindie said that the organization plans to create a grassroots academy with the hope that some day a team consisting of players coming out of this academy would make it to the World Cup.
The championship winning 1970 football team reads: Errol Alphonso – manager, Gladstone Prass- coach, Bertie Young and Schemo Murray- patrons, Martin `Baba Goal’ Inniss – captain, Dennis Ellis and Neil Jones, – goalkeepers, Granton Inniss, Roger Alphonso, Neil `Grizzly’ Humphrey, Sam Jones, Colin Jones, Walton and Walford Edwards, Michael Taylor, Richard Belgrave, Richard Staglon, Hubern Evans, Winston Henry and Floyd Grimmond.
Meanwhile tickets for the organisation’s awards, dinner, show and celebration are already on sale.
Tickets cost $2000 and proceeds will benefit football teams in New Amsterdam at the Primary and High School levels. The inaugural event will be held on August 15 from 6pm at the New Amsterdam Town Hall.
