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The Arima North Secondary football programme is in mourning after the murder of former standout defender and 2023 East Intercol winner Ezekiel Ramdialsingh.
Ramdialsingh, a Manuel Congo resident who graduated from Arima North in June 2024, was gunned down in La Horquetta last night. He was 17 years old.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Arima Araucans.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Ramdialsingh was not the preferred target of the gunman but had previously been seen in the company of the person wanted by the shooter.
Ramdialsingh came from a poor household and, from the age of 14, would wash cars and do other menial chores to raise money to help his mother, Kathy-Ann Charles, and provide for his own education.
His talent on the football field briefly promised a brighter future.
In the 2022 Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) season—the first schoolboy competition in three years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic—Ramdialsingh won a place with the Dial Dynamos and helped steer them to a second successive East Zone Championship Division title and promotion to the Premier Division, via the Big Five competition.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868.
He was 16 years old when he played from the start in Arima North’s return to the SSFL top flight, as they fought to a goalless draw with Presentation College (San Fernando) at the Arima Velodrome in September 2023.
Ramdialsingh was also the first recipient of a book grant by former Arima Senior Comprehensive star Dr Carlos Lee.
In an outstanding 2023 season for the Dial Dynamos, Ramdialsingh won the East Zone Intercol as well as the zonal Under-16 League and KO and the Senior Division KO trophies. But it would be his last spell with Arima North.
Arima North supporters would remember Ramdialsingh for not only his tenacious tackling and workrate, but his clean technique as he struck the ball or pinged passes into his teammates.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Arima Araucans.
A PUFA graduate, Ramdialsingh represented Beatnix Sports Club in the Republic Bank National Youth Football League in 2023 and 2024 while he also wore SMS colours in the NLCL Under-19 Community Cup.
He is a former RBNYFL National Under-17 quarterfinalist.
Ramdialsingh made his debut in the TTPFL Tier One in the 2024/25 season with AIA Eagles, as he transitioned into senior football. Police are investigating his murder.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Arima Araucans.
Editor’s Note: Click HERE to read a 2023 player profile on Ezekiel Ramdialsingh; and HERE to see Ezekiel Ramdialsingh’s surprise 15th birthday gift.
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Today, at my “primetime” age of 71, I can only look back, a mere arms-length away, when I was just 17. This was after a stellar 3-year run playing for St. Mary’s College, and a brief two-month stint under Raffie Knowles with its star-studded North Zone Division One QPCC Team. I was happy as I was humbled to be involved. Confidence was never an issue for me. Star studded because many of the players were recruited from the North Zone colleges from St. Mary’s, QRC, and Belmont. It was the 1971 football season. I was headed to Canada to pursue studies, thus my shortened season. Two years there proved monumental to my future. Now Ezekiel Ramdialsingh is with us no more. No more “ok Mom, Dad” “thank you son”. Memories are all that we have for this young man. I wish I had known him. Though the murder rate in T&T has been showing to be on a decline as compared to this time last year, we are in the top three in the Caribbean and knocking on that top ten door of the world. Jamaica and Haiti are 1 and 3 in the world. The answer to resolve or reverse this trend is no easy task. The issue is a grave one and not just a result of one, two, or five things. Corruption however, is normally cited as, the Queen Bee to all criminal behavior. I am sad for Ezekiel as I am for all our young people. “It isn’t that they are stupid” or bad. “It’s just that they don’t know!” And why is this so? Because they are led by older ones that are leaning bad or have decided to act on their payback instincts and other such revengeful grooming and training. As Emiliano Zapata pontificates, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” As commendable an idiom that it suggests, with a small twist of the minds, one can turn black ants into fire ants. Young minds don’t know what they don’t know, and need safes paces and caring and loving minds to nurture their innocence into resilience born out of mindsets that speak to our watchwords, “Discipline, Production, and Tolerance.” (Thank you, DR. Eric Eustace Williams). A people without God is a people that “seek power and possessions, ultimately finding them insufficient for true fulfillment.” They lack “meaning” in life. Zapata wasn’t necessarily festering violence with his mantra but creating a sense of focus and purpose. But, if left unchaperoned, there are no boundaries. So, I lend a thought to our nation, our grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, siblings, neighborhood parents, and teachers and it speaks to the opposite, and one that can easily work in conjunction with the spirit of Zapata’s cry. I suggest, and this is because I have lived this life ever since a youth and it is as Christ encourages: it’s, ‘Better for you live on your knees than die on your feet.’ That knee suggestion (not literally) seeks God’s wisdom and guidance. It’s about prayer and reflection, internalizing and rehearsing. These ensure that “our decisions which are the hinges on which our future swings,” are made carefully and positively intentional. No violence but surely the right to stand up (not literally) to the things that are wrong and bad. No less than Isaiah’s words to God when God asked, “Who shall I send?” and Isaiah spoke those resolved volunteering words. “Here am I, send me.” Fellow Trinbagonians resist the temptations to be lured into doing things that harm and hurt, especially the terminally fatal courses of action. To the leaders that sit behind this, I beg your consideration of the alternative route. Again, using Dr. Williams’s plea, “the future of this nation lies in the school bags of our children”, we provide the best alternative. From me, Dr. Hannibal Najjar, a lover of my country and its people, to you “doctors” in your own right, put into motion, and set sail for, on our ship, we stand better, working together, for when the waters get rough, and rougher.