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T
he one-year suspension handed down by the Inter-Secondary
Schools Sports Association (ISSA), to former Jamaica College
football coach, Alfred Henry, could be seen as an inevitable
end to an unfortunate aspect of this year’s schoolboy football season.
Henry is, by far, the worst offender but there have been other
outrageous outbursts by coaches from other schools, Donovan ‘DV’
Hayles, for example.
In all the years that ‘DV’ was
coach of Premier League outfit
Harbour View, DV has never got
so hot under the collar, as we
saw this season, in getting his
marching orders from the
Kingston College bench.
The assistant coach of
Spanish Town High also earned his dose of discipline after aiming
toxic words at game officials.
Henry was the worst of them, though, leader of that
infamous gang. He is a chronic repeat offender who
had got out of control and needed to be reigned in
VERBAL MELTDOWNS
The former Jamaica College champion coach had a
string of physical and verbal meltdowns in recent seasons, ranging
from labeling the tournament organisers “nincompoops” to numer-
ous explosions at game officials, to the point where he had to be
physically restrained.
Certainly, enough was enough and we suspect if ISSA didn't get
him, Jamaica College would have.
That illustrious institution must have been embarrassed by
Henry's deplorable and obnoxious behaviour, which was totally
unacceptable and unbecoming of a leader of young and impression-
able minds.
Henry is good and successful coach at this level. However, for the
wider good, he simply had to go.
These are school competitions involving young students and,
whereas winning is important, a standard must be set in terms of
decorum and decency. A message simply had to be sent and an
example had to be set.
4
SportGlobe
December 5-11, 2012
Email: sportglobe2005@yahoo.com
S
ports in schools began as extra-curric-
ular activities designed to ensure stu-
dents received some form of exercise
during their time at school.
Physical education (PE) was
one of the assigned periods dur-
ing the five to six hours children
were in school.
In my time at school (many
years ago) PE meant either
learning or practising a particu-
lar sport, eventually playing the
sport among classmates.
In those years, form matches were arranged
and supervised, as well as inter-house matches.
The talented participants were selected to repre-
sent the school in inter-school competitions, with
strict and respected age guidelines – Under-14
(Colts), Under-16 (First Eleven) and Second
Eleven.
Inter-school rivalry was fierce and intense but
the decisions of the referees, umpires, etc. were
accepted (albeit grudgingly) with no reports (that
I can remember) of a teacher or member of a
school team attacking a match official.
In fact, at some of these inter-school games,
teachers, themselves, were match officials.
Children were taught the ‘spirit of sport’ and we
were constantly reminded that whereas winning
was the main purpose of the game, it was how you
played the game that was important.
MOST PASSIONATE RIVAL
In the mid-60s, at Wolmers’ Boys’ School
(where I was fortunate to attend) we played a
Manning Cup match at the National Stadium
against one of our most passionate rivals, a school
that had been beating us in football and athletics
quite frequently.
The fact that, at cricket and hockey, we
reigned supreme over this particular school,
never seemed to matter much when it came to
Manning Cup time.
In this particular year, Wolmer’s had a reason-
ably good football team and the trek to the stadi-
um that afternoon found all the boys primed with
the expectation that, at last, we would be victori-
ous over this feared team.
Well, to cut a long story short,
Wolmer’s won 5-0. We were
ecstatic!
The following morning at
prayers, (Do they still have
morning prayers at secondary
schools?) our headmaster, the
revered and feared (respected)
H. (Chicken) Walker, (after
who the present Walker Cup is
named), called all the
members of the team
to the small stage at
the front of the hall.
We were hum-
ming and itching to
clap our heroes
who, we were sure,
were going to be
given great rewards,
when our beloved
headmaster castigated
the entire team, (and
the school) for “humili-
ating our rivals and rev-
eling in their defeat!”
We were shocked to learn that fateful morning
that Wolmers’ boys should not behave like that
and, in future, once winning was assured, there
was to be “no popping, or mock-
ing of our opponents”.
Those days are long gone from
school sports. Today, the name of
the game is winning at all cost.
Talented children are recruited
and ‘bought’ from unsuspecting
schools and transferred to ‘name-
brand’ schools, irrespective of
their academic qualification, (which is what
placed them in the non-name-brand school in the
first place).
DISPLAY OF VIOLENCE
Professional coaches are hired and, woe-be-tide
the coach who does not produce victory with his
carefully selected ‘All-Schools Eleven’.
Thus, we see at matches, and on national televi-
sion, the crassest display of violence and vitriol
aimed at anyone thought to be the reason for the
loss suffered by the name-brand school.
Jamaica College’s coach, Alfred Henry, has a
history of disgraceful behaviour whenever his
team is defeated. He has been suspended by the
body responsible for school sports in the past and
hastily reinstated by an understanding body of
principals, the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports
Association (ISSA), who seem to have lost sight of
the true meaning of school sports.
This body of principals has turned a blind eye to
the rampant ‘buying’ of students, who are trans-
ferred with the sole aim of assisting the name-
brand school with winning.
After seeing the two incidents of crass behav-
iour by this teacher at JC (who was restrained, at
one point, by a pupil!), my only regret was that he
was restrained.
I do believe that if he had been allowed to com-
plete his attempt at physically injuring an official
at a schoolboy game, then the time he would have
spent in a cell at one of our many places of incar-
ceration, sharing a cell with a fellow miscreant
with a history of unusual and latent desires,
would be just punishment and would send a pro-
found and lasting message to other teachers,
coaches and members of ISSA that an example
of good behaviour, when teaching children, is
a prerequisite to being employed.
Those All-Schools Eleven
Oral Tracey
Follow
the
Trace
Dr Paul Wright
The
Wright
View
GLADSTONE TAYLOR
Former Jamaica College head
coach Alfred Henry.
Game over,
Alfred Henry
This body of principals
has turned a blind eye
to the rampant ‘buying’
of students, who are
transferred with the sole
aim of assisting the
name-brand school
with winning.
GLADSTONE TAYLOR
Former Jamaica College football coach, Alfred Henry, being restrained by goal-
keeper Odean Clarke (second right), manager Ian Forbes (left) and Ian Andrews
(right), with police personnel in the background, during the November 10
Manning Cup match against Denham Town at Constant Spring.