By Neto Baptiste
A total of 12 players from the Guydadli Jets FC, will travel to the UK at the end of July for a one-month stint with the FCV International Football Academy.
The contingent will include five players who had a similar sting last year when they travelled under the Soccer Academy banner. They are Ivan Grant (defender), Keyondre Hewlett (forward), Kamari Hewlett (defender), Terell Duberry (defender) and Teeray Layne (goalkeeper).
Players travelling to the UK stint for the first tine are Terroy Pond, Ezekiel Clarke, Taijah Christian, Nicholas Clarke, Imani Joyce and Malik Williamson.
The Manager of the Guydadli Jets FC, Wayne Hewlett, said the club will be putting on a number of fundraisers as they seek to support the young players on their journey.
“Please give your support; it’s life changing to a lot of these athletes and it also impacts the other athletes that they come back and train with because they come with a different intensity now. I was speaking to a coach in St. Kitts the other day and he thought it was the opposite way and that their intensity would have dropped coming back to Antigua, so I told him no, the intensity of the other players came up. Maybe it dropped a little bit but it did not drop and come right back down to zero. They are helping the coach now to pull up the other guys and hopefully, soon from now, we’ll be sending plane tickets for Antiguans instead of somebody coming and gaining a passport,” he said.
Meanwhile, the club’s UK-based marketing and logistics consultant, Peter Galloway, said the players stand to benefit from a holistic training and recruitment programme once in the UK. He added that the experience could not only help to shape them as players but also as individuals.
“What these guys need to understand is that it’s not just football because there are lots of things involved and lots of things they can go into if they can’t make it at football so we get the mindset into these young boys that if they don’t make it as a footballer then there is a chance to be a coach because the academy gives you that opportunity, they train you,” he said.
“It’s not just football, it’s everything. It’s social media, everything is monitored so they have to carry themselves as men, it’s not just going on a field and kicking a ball so there are lots of things involved. They don’t know who are watching them because you have coaches, you have scouts and everything sitting around dress as vagabonds and watching your body movements, watching your attitude so it’s a lot of things involved,” he added.
FCV International Football Academy is listed as the UK’s first private football academy, providing academic football courses for aspiring footballers aged 14 and 21.
The Guydadli Jets FC will host weekly fundraisers as they seek to gather the funds required for the initiative.
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