Excerpt taken from soon to be published Football Autobiograp

[Assasin]

HARBOUR VIEW 1960

The community of Harbour View located some six miles east of the capital Kingston- was quite remote in terms of transportation, utilities, facilities, and the like. Traveling beyond the Cement Company in a further easterly direction...the driver of the truck took the first left turn off the main road leading into the new established community… and in a low gear moved up the fairly steep hill that was Harbour Drive to a corner at the top where a down hill right hand turn was made. The road was called Tuna Avenue and the stop was made at number 41. The house was owned by one Ms Angus who proved to be both friend and foe in my mom's personal struggles. This would be my new home baseuntil the legal wrangling that enveloped my mother's state of affairs would iron out itself; so I hoped.
EARLY 1961, no sooner than we had settled in at 41 Tuna Avenue that a slow, piece by piece moving began which took items across the old rickety 'dividing' bridge under which ran the Hope River that linked the developed western section of Harbour View with the undeveloped [no streets, lights, water, etc.] eastern section of the housing scheme where we settled [Moms, Grandma, and Brother] into our own home at Lot 1532 Mars Drive. Ownership truly is power. Even when there is neither electricity nor running water.
There were no schools as yet built in this community beyond Rockfort so I continued by busing it the Holy Rosary preparatory school. The daily drive along the Mineral Bath Cement Company road was always exhilarating… like leaving town and heading into the country and vice versa. The thrills of bumming a ride was ever adventurous and a necessary economic saver of often limited monetary resources.

[Farmah]

who is the author Sass?

[Assasin]

The author is Titchfield High coach Dr. Donald Davis otherwise call Don D, and IMan Blak.

it is very interesting. I am trying to post more but the forum crashes whenever I do.

[Farmah]

Ahiite. Was wondering if it was Clyde Juereidini

[Assasin]

During my early years in the community of Harbour View I became engorged in a highly competitive sporting environment ...in a pioneering spirit of discovery and adventurism...original inhabitants of the Matalon - built housing scheme in east rural St. Andrew...driven by a hive of activities that included athletics, cricket, football, table tennis, swimming, gymnastics, music and entertainment. Besides always having a piano in my home, my inspiration for music and the keyboards were reinforced by my affiliation with Roland Alphanso, Club Parisienne, the Skatalites and my neighbor on Sirius Avenue in the figure of a young KC organist named Jackie Mittoo. It was only recently that I realized that I developed my ‘cross-over hand’ style of playing from the “Master” himself. However, Football was the dominant activity and sport and was a seven day a week life-style. Some times we played two or three times per day on the streets of Venus Avenue, Zenith Avenue, Mars Drive and eventually to a large tract of land on the other side of the St. Thomas Road and between / next to the Caribbean Sea.

In the immediate post Independent period, as youths we would be up before sunrise and head across the St. Thomas main road, just easterly beyond the Hope River Bridge. Adjacent to the community of East Harbour View was a broad expanse of woodland bordering on the Caribbean Sea. In an attempt to create space play, we spent weeks chopping out the bush land and moving wooden tree stumps with the objective in mind to create a football field with the correct international measurements. After cutting and clearing the swamp woodland, the bigger boys arranged for several trucks to dump up the field. Many mornings on our daily clearing we often met retreating sea water at least half the distance between the main road and the ocean. We know that the sea came in at nights and retreated by early morning. We collectively called our new grounds the 'Big Field'. This playfield embodied the pioneering spirit of political independence and triggered the formation of the first senior football club in Harbour View named the Eastern Thunderbolts FC. and marked the beginning of Harbour View's emergence on the Jamaican national football scene.
The Eastern Thunderbolt FC became the first football club to represent Harbour View in the Kingston and St. Andrew Divisional League competition with the Big Field as our home field. The team had players such as Errol 'Flam' Smart, Leonard Edwards, Ludlow 'Luddy' Morrell (deceased), Trevor Bowlin, Barry Chin Fook, Roy Lee (deceased), Johnny 'Fowla' Beverley, Junior 'Jah Booka' Hines, the Meikel brothers, Philip and ‘Judge’, the Neil brothers, et al. Fortunately, I was personally able to watch and play alongside some of the island's best senior footballers at this time. This included Dr. Lascelles 'Muggy' Graham, Nigel 'Pummy' Goodison, Donald 'Billy' Perkins, and many top class schoolboy players who played and lived in the community.

[Assasin]

In 1964 during my final year at Holy Rosary Preparatory school, I selected KC as my first choice in the Common Entrance Examination and was successful. I spent many nights under the light studying on my front verandah in Harbour View. Every one knew that if you could play/represent Kingston College in the Manning Cup then your chances of playing for Jamaica would increase significantly.
At the time the main purpose for taking the Common Entrance Examination and selecting KC was to develop my football playing skills as KC was the top sporting school in Jamaica and perhaps the first sporting college producing many of the island's best athletes (runners, footballers, cricketers, etc.) and school boy football teams in the country.
I entered KC at Melbourne Park in 1965. KC’s Manning Cup teams of 1964 and 1965 have been acclaimed to be the ‘greatest schoolboy team’ ever with outstanding play against Brazil’s National Under 20 team.

My grandmother was not the most 'educated’ but held the home-fort while my mother [from herein to be called MVD] set her foundation in the USA.

By 1965, "dem tek weh wi fiel inna Harbour View an mek one up-scale housin scheme rite pon de sea". The demise of the ‘Big Field’ has repercussions that still resonate in the football culture in Harbour View. The moving of the football centre from East Harbour View to the Compound on the western side of Harbour View led to the subsequent demise of the Eastern Thunderbolt FC and the shifting of the football loci from east Harbour View to the western section where play was developed on the hazardous and stony Compound. Shortly afterwards a small triangular piece of land located on Aqua Avenue on the Western side of the community became another recognized play area.

ASIDE: When the Flora rains of 1966 swamped Jamaica, Caribbean Terrace experienced minimal damage but the first indication of potential danger was evident as the Hope River flooded out homes [in Harbour View] along the bank of the river [Riverside drive, Orion avenue, etc.] as well as threatened the back yards of the homes in Caribbean Terrace.
The field was 'captured' by very opportunistic and greedy investors who convinced upper middle class and affluent potential home owners of the 'exclusiveness' in purchasing a home in the newly proposed 'Caribbean Terrace’ to be built on the "buffer lands" between the Caribbean Sea and the St. Thomas main road.

[Assasin]

My third year at KC proved to be quite an eventful one. To begin, moving from second to third form was accompanied by a move from Melbourne Park to the Cloverly Park Big Boy campus on North Street. The real center of the College where the spirit of 'Fortis cadere, cadere non potest', Bishop Gibson , Douglas Forrest and Jonathan Augustus Crick could be felt. Following on the trend of my first two years, I was named to the All Third Form Team and began to gain prominence as a young 'baller on the North Street campus. I suffered from what I interpreted as a major 'set-back' in my attempt to play on the school's Colts U16 Team. The coach at the time (I think it was Trevor Parchment) respected my speed and skill on the ball but felt that I was young, too skinny and had two more years of eligibility and perhaps a sure selection for the following year. Instead, I became sick and sad at not making the U16 Colts team. My disappointment was so far reaching that for the first time my grades became affected. I seem to have lost interest in school as well as in most subjects; leaving school at midday thru the hole in the fence and spending time back in Harbour View...so that by the end of the Christmas term of 1967, my academic future at KC looked dim, a request for my parent to pay the school a visit was imminent and the prospect of having to 'repeat' third form loomed ominously.

[Farmah]

Keep the pieces coming Sass. Very interesting read.

[Assasin]

In January 1968, my mother made her belated first return visit to Jamaica... since Independence Day 1962. Although I was left in the care of my grandmother[Mame], I had been psychologically responsible for myself from Independence day 1962...including my preparation for the dreaded Common Entrance and so had spent much time in the past six year in reflection and thought that shaped my early outlook and ambitions on life.
During MVD's visit she reviewed my last report card which I somehow forgot to mail (after sending for two years)to her and realized that something was not so kosher as my grades were in a steady decline along with a request for her presence. In a stream of consciousness she mentioned something about going or coming to live with her in Brooklyn. At first the idea was quite alarming as the City of New York seemed overwhelming. Soon I realized that this was the route out of my 'road-block situation' and that maybe my "football dream' could be resurrected in a 'foreign land'. Within a few days the machinery for travelling to the USA was set in motion. Within a couple of weeks I had secured a passport, medical certificate, police record and all the necessary travel documents. I never mentioned to anyone that I would be going to A Merry Ka until my flight was booked with ticket in hand. It was in the middle of the Easter term when all the pieces fell in place and the moment of exit was on cue.
At the time of my departure I told maybe just two of my close classmates as I felt as though I was making the best possible move at the moment and there was not much emotional detachment required to move on.