No praise for mediocrity

THE EDITOR: When you hear people like Anil Roberts pontificating on football and literally justifying mediocrity then sports can get absolutely nowhere further for Trinidadians than Trinidad. Plain and simple, the performances by the Soca Warriors in the last two games ie against the USA and Jamaica were most pathetic.

Those players played as though they were programmed. They had a certain area in which to play or to control and when the ball passed on that boundary line nobody knew what to do. You see them leave the ball passing by their toes because the imaginary boundary line was there. They kick the ball when passing it as though it (ball) had blood and veins and could feel pain. We do not have a point and a swimmer who does not or did not have any respect from others in the water on the world class scene singing high praises.

From Anil Roberts’ tone of voice you can tell that he is not an authority on any sports. People like Anil like to beat themselves ie if he swims 50 metres in 75 seconds and then does it in 74.1 seconds then he has done great even though the world mark may be 28 seconds over the distance. Athletes like Morris and Daniel were only interested in beating each other. Our footballers look forward to win Jamaica and Barbados and tremble when they hear the Americans are coming. Our cricketers want to be likened to former  great West Indian players and then they become the best drinker in the local rumshop. Yet Anil Roberts and the likes heap praises on mediocrity and “gorntotheheadedness.”

We saw the West Indians in Australia under Brian Lara playing hard to come back home and the Anil Roberts, stay mum. Chalkdust sang about Lara’s strong desire to come back in time for Carnival and he did not lie. The Digicel Manager spoke about the happiness of some players after losing games. We need to have more professionals like Jack Warner, Manohar Ramsaran, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose and Rohan Kanhai if we are to get anywhere further in sports.

LYSTRA LYTHE
Sangre Grande