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“[…] You’d be lucky to find five kids who can name five national players they admire. The conversations have vanished. The excitement, the pride, the obsession—all but erased.
“We’ve lost more than talent. We’ve lost culture. Identity. Connection… We’ve allowed football to become hollow, run by people who don’t feel what the game means…”
The following Letter to the Editor on the perceived demise of Trinidad and Tobago’s football was submitted to Wired868 by ‘Betterment’:
(Copyright AFP 2014/ Aris Messinis.)
There was a time when football lived in our veins. When children argued in schoolyards and savannahs about who was better: Stern John or Dwight Yorke, Russell Latapy or Leroy Spann.
Clubs meant something. Country meant everything. Our footballers weren’t just athletes—they were legends in the making. We knew their names. We wore their numbers. We dreamed because of them.
Today? That passion is gone.
The twin-island nation is only the second country in the English-speaking Caribbean to qualify in the tournament’s history, after Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz in 1998.
(Copyright AP Photo/ Shirley Bahadur.)
You’d be lucky to find five kids who can name five national players they admire. The conversations have vanished. The excitement, the pride, the obsession—all but erased.
We’ve lost more than talent. We’ve lost culture. Identity. Connection.
And yet, the raw potential is still there. In the hills, on the blocks, behind every battered ball and barefoot sprint, there’s a child dreaming. Football is still their way out. Still their heartbeat.
But the system? The support? The inspiration? Nowhere to be found.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868.
We’ve allowed football to become hollow, run by people who don’t feel what the game means. No plan. No pipeline. No pride. Just politics, self-interest, and the same tired names trading positions while the sport sinks deeper.
We can’t fix this with tweaks. We need to tear it down and build something worthy of the players we’ve ignored and the fans we’ve forgotten.
We need heroes again. We need a football culture that lights up classrooms, inspires playground debates, and brings communities together.
(Copyright AFP Photo/ John Mottern.)
We need to care again—not just about winning, but about who we are when we play.
Only a revolution can bring that back. Not in name: in heart.
And until we find that heart again, T&T football will keep fading into silence.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868.
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This letter mourning the decline of Trinidad and Tobago football speaks a painful truth — but it also echoes something deeper: the erosion of the same spirit that once propelled our greatest athletes beyond their circumstances and into legend.
Look at Dwight Yorke. A boy from a two-bedroom bungalow in Tobago, raised with eight siblings by a garbage collector and a cleaner. He didn’t rise because the system made it easy. He rose in spite of it — because the dream was alive, and the game meant something. Kids like Yorke once saw football as more than a game. It was their ticket out, their badge of pride, their proof that greatness could come from anywhere.
Russell Latapy? He came from Laventille, a place known more for struggle than stardom. His father left when he was two. Yet football gave him purpose. It gave him a stage to be seen, a place to be somebody. The streets knew his name before the nation did — because back then, talent had a path, and the community knew how to nurture it.
Even Brian Lara, though a cricketer, is part of this same story. His father made sure he had coaching from the age of six — not because they had money, but because they had intent. There was a system, a support, a commitment to excellence from early. And it made all the difference.
The point is this: our legends weren’t born in luxury — they were forged in adversity, lifted by communities, and backed by passion. What they had that we’re losing isn’t just talent — it’s belief. Structure. Investment. A culture that recognized the value of sport and the power of dreaming.
Today’s children still have the hunger. But the system? It’s broken. The pipeline is dry. The inspiration is missing. And when we lose that, we lose more than matches — we lose our national soul.
So yes — this letter is right. We don’t just need better management. We need a revolution. A cultural rebirth. One that remembers that football once raised Yorke from a bungalow, Latapy from Laventille, and inspired a cricketing prodigy like Lara to chase greatness.
If we want our children to believe again, we have to build something worthy of their dreams. Not for fame. Not for politics. But for heart.
in an age when we PUNISH our children by sending them outside to play, is it not beyond optimism to think that we can bring back yesterday’s enthusiasm for team sports?
The shifting of hobbies or passions can cause this. As people grow and develop, their interests may shift, and soccer might no longer be a priority. Then again you have a situation where consistent poor performances by our teams can be disheartening and interest is lost. Other sports, such as basketball and American football have gained popularity among young people and with the marketing and TV exposure the young people are gravitating towards those sports and can identify players and their shirt numbers.
The proliferation of streaming services has led to a shift in entertainment preferences, with many young people opting for on-demand content over live sports. To re-engage young people with soccer, it is essential to address factors like having local soccer shown on local television and find ways to make the sport more relatable, accessible, and enjoyable for younger audiences. As the football dies so does fan participation and without any local team or community to support, the interest will wane.
Someone told me I was talking caca when I said we should start identifying kids as early as age 6 for football talent. There’s a reason why Canadian football is at the level where it is today. In the summer every football field has games from ages 4 up. Well organized leagues with lots of parental support. When I visit Trinidad I am lucky if I see a kid kicking a ball in a yard in my hometown. We need to bring back organized community football for all ages otherwise we will only see caca instead of Kaka
I suspect the writer is a younger fan (with the name Leroy Spann the exception as his career may’ve had a lot more longevity). I remember as a youngster getting up on mornings to listen to the radio reports coming in from Haiti (where we were participating in the qualifers for the 1974 world cup in Germany where we were mecilessly cheated of a place in that finals in Germany by a Canadian referee who was later given a lifetime ban, if my memory serves me well). The names then were Leon Carpette, Steve David, Steve Khan, Leroy DeLeon, Wilfred Cave etc. In my Neighbourhood had Guys like Slappy Charles (now deceased), Clyde Grant, Trevor Highly, B.O(one of the greatest scorers in local football). This was Memphis F.C. Many of them appeared on the national team. I agree with you. We ‘ve fallen a long way very fast to the point where we are at a crisis. As usual we are looking for quick fixes rather than putting enduring structures in place that will propel the game forward and ultimately increase interest and participartion.