Maryland f/ballers kick off tourism drive

The young at heart representatives of Older Red Soccer Club of Maryland, USA recently paid a visit on newly appointed Minister of Culture and Tourism Howard Chin Lee at his 51 Frederick Street, Port-of-Spain office.

Older Red, on their second visit to Trinidad and Tobago, boast a 16-member complement with their youngest player being 45-years-old.
 They are dominated by footballers from Guatemala, Jamaica, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, Bolivia and England. Older Red have played four matches since arriving last Saturday and continued their hectic schedule last weekend with three more matches in a round-robin tournament on Saturday. They left on Sunday for their home in Maryland. During the short meeting with Minister Chin Lee, team manager Joe Hashmall revealed that both he and his players have travelled to Guatemala, Peru and Jamaica but have chosen to revisit this country because of the warm reception they received before.

Stating they have been shown another side of Trinidad and Tobago that cannot be put in a brochure, Hashmall and goalkeeper John Tabori marvelled at the camaraderie among the people they have met. Older Red’s involvement in the sport is a reflection of football’s growth in the United States and their visits to Trinidad and Tobago go in hand with the TT government’s sport tourism initiative. Chin Lee revealed that TIDCO is currently negotiating for professional European teams to use this country’s facilities for summer training programmes. These will prove to be very important cultural exchanges, he said and will lead up to the 2007 Cricket World Cup to be hosted in the Caribbean.Older Red members also visited Tobago, the Asa Wright Centre and shopped in downtown Port-of-Spain for souvenirs to take back to the US.