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Tracey Reid 'coaching' her way into history book
PAUL A REID, Observer writer
Monday, May 21, 2007
REID... is among a plethora of coaches in western Jamaica who have never attended any formal coaching seminars
GRANVILLE, St James - When the new Wray & Nephew National Premier League (NPL) season gets under way in September, Tracey Reid hopes to create history and usher in a new era in Jamaica's football.
She hopes that on opening day she will be the first female coach in charge of an NPL club when she leads Granville FC of St James out on to the field.
The mother of five, including a baby girl who is not yet three months old, and wife of former national youth goalkeeper Loxley Reid, has taken Granville further than any of her predecessors have.
Granville won the Captain's Bakery-sponsored Western Confederation Super League after beating Montpelier 3-1 on aggregate in the final to qualify for the four-team play-off that started yesterday.
The confident Tracey will not allow any questions starting with "if you qualify", but rather insists that "when we qualify", saying Granville's "chances of advancing are very good. The players are focused, the momentum is very high and ... you have to outscore Granville to beat Granville".
Tracey is among a plethora of coaches in western Jamaica who have never sat any formal coaching seminars, but said she is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that when her team advances she will be qualified to be on the bench.
While she got into coaching "by accident", she says, she was always around football and Granville club in one capacity or the other and maybe it was fate and her strong will that got her the job.
As a young girl growing up in the Granville area, she had little interest in the 'female sports', but with her three brothers, five male cousins and close friends all involved in football, she was naturally drawn to football.
She recalls that she was the only female in the group that would go to games, either corner leagues in the area or to watch schoolboy football or club football in the wider St James community.
It was not surprising then that it was at a corner league game that she met her husband, then a student at Rusea's. She had no idea he was the goalkeeper for the team.
Some time in the 2002 season while she was the secretary for the Granville club, she got a call from Lilly-Mae Crawford, the league director for the St James Football Association, advising her that if Granville did not pay up outstanding dues by midday, they would be kicked out of the competition.
She claimed that she begged an additional hour, dropped off her children at school and went to find the then de facto head of the club, Landel Fisher, a player, and asked what was the situation with the money.
He told her they did not have the money and after further discussion she found out they had printed some tags for a Tag Drive, but had problems selling them.
Tracey said she took the tags and after selling them in a few hours and not reaching the amount owed, she started begging.
Not only did she get the sum owed, but got extra money, which after paying the FA turned it over to the then coach Delroy 'Pencil' Delisser.
Delisser left the club the next season and some time after a player, Davian Thelwell, asked for some help - which she thought was administrative - only for her to be asked to take over the coaching duties when she went to the field that day.
Thelwell and others, she said, realised her depth of knowledge of the game and thought she could help them move forward.
She said she taught herself by reading a Physical Education book she had and also called her husband and his then coach at Waterhouse, Geoffrey Maxwell, and had them explain things to her.
The results will prove that she learnt well and after taking the team to the Western Confederation Super League, took them as far as the semi-finals last season and to the title this year.
When asked if she found coaching young men very indisciplined, her forthright answer was: "If you know Tracey Reid then you know there can be no obstacles. I am a stern person and anything I say, goes... if you can't abide by it then you have to go, as I won't put up with any foolishness."
The senior management of the club, including president Whitcliff Campbell and manager Marvin Clarke, she said, has given her their full backing "to do whatever it takes to ensure discipline is maintained in the team".
She cited an example of a player, whom she recently asked not to return to the club, after repeatedly giving him chances to curb his behaviour. She said she spoke to him at length, "suspended him. He came back and begged, got a chance, but resumed his bad behaviour again so we had no choice but to ask him to go finally".
Her biggest success, however, aside from taking the team to within six games of the NPL, is her relationship with the players. "People would think I am their mother if you did not know better," she said.
She said she has not had the opportunity to see any of the other three teams as the many delays in the Western Confederation Super League did not give her the chance to do any scouting.
PAUL A REID, Observer writer
Monday, May 21, 2007
REID... is among a plethora of coaches in western Jamaica who have never attended any formal coaching seminarsGRANVILLE, St James - When the new Wray & Nephew National Premier League (NPL) season gets under way in September, Tracey Reid hopes to create history and usher in a new era in Jamaica's football.
She hopes that on opening day she will be the first female coach in charge of an NPL club when she leads Granville FC of St James out on to the field.
The mother of five, including a baby girl who is not yet three months old, and wife of former national youth goalkeeper Loxley Reid, has taken Granville further than any of her predecessors have.
Granville won the Captain's Bakery-sponsored Western Confederation Super League after beating Montpelier 3-1 on aggregate in the final to qualify for the four-team play-off that started yesterday.
The confident Tracey will not allow any questions starting with "if you qualify", but rather insists that "when we qualify", saying Granville's "chances of advancing are very good. The players are focused, the momentum is very high and ... you have to outscore Granville to beat Granville".
Tracey is among a plethora of coaches in western Jamaica who have never sat any formal coaching seminars, but said she is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that when her team advances she will be qualified to be on the bench.
While she got into coaching "by accident", she says, she was always around football and Granville club in one capacity or the other and maybe it was fate and her strong will that got her the job.
As a young girl growing up in the Granville area, she had little interest in the 'female sports', but with her three brothers, five male cousins and close friends all involved in football, she was naturally drawn to football.
She recalls that she was the only female in the group that would go to games, either corner leagues in the area or to watch schoolboy football or club football in the wider St James community.
It was not surprising then that it was at a corner league game that she met her husband, then a student at Rusea's. She had no idea he was the goalkeeper for the team.
Some time in the 2002 season while she was the secretary for the Granville club, she got a call from Lilly-Mae Crawford, the league director for the St James Football Association, advising her that if Granville did not pay up outstanding dues by midday, they would be kicked out of the competition.
She claimed that she begged an additional hour, dropped off her children at school and went to find the then de facto head of the club, Landel Fisher, a player, and asked what was the situation with the money.
He told her they did not have the money and after further discussion she found out they had printed some tags for a Tag Drive, but had problems selling them.
Tracey said she took the tags and after selling them in a few hours and not reaching the amount owed, she started begging.
Not only did she get the sum owed, but got extra money, which after paying the FA turned it over to the then coach Delroy 'Pencil' Delisser.
Delisser left the club the next season and some time after a player, Davian Thelwell, asked for some help - which she thought was administrative - only for her to be asked to take over the coaching duties when she went to the field that day.
Thelwell and others, she said, realised her depth of knowledge of the game and thought she could help them move forward.
She said she taught herself by reading a Physical Education book she had and also called her husband and his then coach at Waterhouse, Geoffrey Maxwell, and had them explain things to her.
The results will prove that she learnt well and after taking the team to the Western Confederation Super League, took them as far as the semi-finals last season and to the title this year.
When asked if she found coaching young men very indisciplined, her forthright answer was: "If you know Tracey Reid then you know there can be no obstacles. I am a stern person and anything I say, goes... if you can't abide by it then you have to go, as I won't put up with any foolishness."
The senior management of the club, including president Whitcliff Campbell and manager Marvin Clarke, she said, has given her their full backing "to do whatever it takes to ensure discipline is maintained in the team".
She cited an example of a player, whom she recently asked not to return to the club, after repeatedly giving him chances to curb his behaviour. She said she spoke to him at length, "suspended him. He came back and begged, got a chance, but resumed his bad behaviour again so we had no choice but to ask him to go finally".
Her biggest success, however, aside from taking the team to within six games of the NPL, is her relationship with the players. "People would think I am their mother if you did not know better," she said.
She said she has not had the opportunity to see any of the other three teams as the many delays in the Western Confederation Super League did not give her the chance to do any scouting.