Benjamin: Limited timeframe hampering school leagues

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By Neto Baptiste

Coordinator of schools football Rowan Benjamin said not being able to spread the leagues over all three school terms has made it difficult for organisers to play beyond one round of football in some competitions.

Benjamin, who identified October 3rd as a possible starting date for the secondary schools competition, said his hope was to play more football this year.

“Take for instance our marquee tournament; we’re only playing one round and that is totally inadequate. I would like to look at a situation where it is home and away where you could have Pares vs. PMS at Pares and then at PMS the next round. Now, we’re talking about five different competitions, so you wouldn’t have enough time to do all this,” he said.

“We would have to look at one of these situations where either we play one or two of these age-groups on Saturday mornings and then, when we looked at that situation, we found a number of road blocks in the way in terms of that,” he added. 

Outside of the first team, Benjamin said there are no other windows available to football, as cricket takes over most of the grassed surfaces in the second term.

“Different from football, there is no other sport that is played in the first term and that has been happening for years. I always try to fight against it not happening and I just cannot see why maybe a netball that uses the hard court couldn’t play in the first term. So, in other words, all the sports are really crammed into the second period,” he said. 

Shockingly, the coordinator revealed that schools sports are not played in the third term as students ready themselves for the various examinations.

“In the third term it is more or less light training because the principal will tell you there is no time for sports in the third term, that is exams, and that’s just the system, and for years it’s been like that. Once it’s the third term then you cannot organise a competition within that period,” Benjamin said. The coordinator said he will be making recommendations as to the way forward as they seek to add more matches to a number of divisions within the schools competition.

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