Big 5: Mucurapo West thrive on ‘Patchy’ display, as Palo Seco turned away

Mucurapo West Secondary, first time North Zone Championship winners, made a dream start on their First Citizens Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) Big Five debut yesterday as they downed Palo Seco Secondary 3–1 in Mucurapo.

The contest was one of two Big Five matches played on Match Day One, with Hillview College cruising to a 7–0 win over Presentation College (Chaguanas) in the other fixture.

On Saturday, Mucurapo West will host Hillview from 3.30pm on Christopher Samuel Drive. And, just two rounds and four days into the 2025 Big Five competition, the winning school could already start preparing to host the likes of Naparima College, Fatima College and St Benedict’s College.

Six points at this stage have been enough for Premier Division promotion in each of the last five campaigns.

Mucurapo West coach Theophilus Boyce could almost smell it already.

“One more win and we get six points,” Boyce told Wired868, “and then we look for anything else after that…”

For Palo Seco coach Jason Gross, the 2025 Big Five edition already looks like a long slog.

The South Zone winners host Speyside Secondary on Wednesday 5 November, with little margin for error already.

Palo Seco, Presentation (Chaguanas) and Mucurapo West have never made it this far before. Hillview were East Zone Championship winners in 2024 but finished fourth in the Big Five, and failed to snare a Premier Division invitation.

Speyside, alone, have successfully navigated this competition before.

Inevitably, the Premier Division will have two brand new member schools in 2026.

In Mucurapo yesterday, it was the visitors from south Trinidad who made their case first.

There were fewer than three minutes on the clock when Palo Seco midfielder Yasin Dyer flicked on a long ball in the opposing penalty area. It could have gone anywhere. But, as fortune had it, the ball fell invitingly for attacker Ezekiel Garcia, who did not need to be asked twice.

Dyer and Garcia twisted their heads, in celebration, as though it was nap time. Did they think they had put the game to bed already?

You could be sure that Mucurapo West players did not whisper back, “sweet dreams”.

“Kenwyn! Kenwyn!” Mucurapo coach Theophilus Boyce shouted to catch the attention of his young goalkeeper, Kenwyn Williams.

Williams looked over.

“You couldn’t come for that [ball]?” asked Boyce.

Williams looked away without responding. What was he supposed to say anyway?

Boyce is the kind of coach who players still hear in their heads, two hours after the final whistle—instructing, provoking, encouraging…always saying something.

The kind of headmaster who refuses to accept lowered standards.

And Mucurapo West kept coming. Their game was not built on passing triangles, overloads or tricky off the ball movement.

Boyce’s boys are coming through the front door, through sheer desire and energy. Stop them if you can.

“If people come to see the football we played over the last three years, they wouldn’t see it,” Boyce told Wired868. “The last three years we played football with knocking and pushing the ball in the hole—and we were coming second right through.

“This year, the key is: go direct… We’re going direct. Let we see what they have!”

Striker Caleb “Patchy” Jacob, a slender 14-year-old form two student, might not seem an obvious choice as the target man for a route-one team. Jacob is neither particularly tall, strong, nor quick.

But he has a good football head on his shoulders, a decent touch and an innate understanding of space. And to quote Boyce: “That’s a player there—that’s the man.”

In the 22^nd minute, Boyce ghosted on to a loose ball in the opposing area to pull Mucurapo West level. Ten minutes into the second half, the talented youngster created a tap-in for winger Eli Williams to put the hosts ahead—although Boyce was quite possibly trying to score himself, rather than assist.

And, in the 62^nd minute, Boyce again just appeared on the blindside of the Palo Seco defence for a simple finish after teammate Alexis Warren’s scuffed shot-cum-cross somehow made its way to him at the back post.

In the dying minutes, Palo Seco attacker Jeremiah Fermin made a clever pirouette at the edge of Mucurapo West penalty area and unleashed a fierce drive that just cleared the bar.

It was probably the closest that the visitors came to unsettling Williams since the opening goal. Yet, Palo Seco were not a bad team at all. In fact, it was easier to see their pattern of play and how they intended to advance the ball into dangerous areas.

The problem was, on the small, uneven Mucurapo field, they could not find the space or move the ball quickly enough to escape the pressure applied by the host team.

And giant Mucurapo West midfielder Jamani “Reddo” Andrews might as well have been holding a “No Entry” sign—so comfortably did he repel Palo Seco’s ball movement.

“We didn’t play our normal game today,” said Palo Seco coach Jason Gross. “I don’t know if it was the stage for the fellahs and them… Their rhythm and thing was off, and they couldn’t string their passes.

“After the second [Mucurapo West] goal scored, my team dropped their heads and they didn’t really recover from that.”

Gross is only in his second season as Palo Seco head coach, and already he has made history for the school. But he is desperate to make the most of his golden generation.

Eight of Palo Seco’s players, including captain and goalkeeper Kristan Woods, are in form five, and the school—like Mucurapo West—does not have a sixth form.

“If we don’t do it this season, it will be harder next season,” said Gross, as he pointed to his pending departures. “[…] I believe I can take this team into the Premiership. I really believe so.

“[…] We are going back to the drawing board, but we are not giving up. We are going to dust off and come again.”

Understandably, the Mucurapo West camp was more upbeat.

Recently retired school principal Joseph Taylor, a veteran administrator in the refereeing fraternity, beamed at the final whistle, as he congratulated each player and member of staff individually.

Boyce revealed that, four years ago, he asked Taylor to: “give me three years to get us in the position we are in now”. He is a year behind schedule then, but for the excited students at the ground, it must be worth the wait.

“Before we reached to football, we had to discipline their minds,” said Boyce, “to come to school, to do their work, [to have] discipline at home, everything. And then football came easy.

“We now start to play the football we want to play.”

Boyce singled out Andrews, Jameel Joseph and his captain, Amenhotep Harper, among the players whose progress filled him with pride. “Little” Williams, too.

“Kenwyn, the goalkeeper, is a little youth man who came from Morvant, Laventille, and he’s now in form two,” said the Mucurapo West coach. “We might bouff him and thing, but he is doing well for his age.”

And then there was Patchy Jacob.

“I appreciate everything he is doing for us now,” said Boyce, of his precocious form two student.

Up next come the formidable Hillview College team, an outfit blessed with considerable resources, on and off the field.

Mucurapo West are unlikely to face a better test of their title aspirations.

Teams

Mucurapo West Secondary (3-5-2): 1.Kenwyn Williams (GK); 4.Levi Johnson (15.Joshua Dopwell 46), 6.Omaleke Paul, 9.Nazim Skinner; 20.Eli Williams, 8.Marlon Jordan (21.Jameel Joseph 68), 5.Jamani Andrews, 12.Amenhotep Harper (captain), 14.Xanye Hamilton; 7.Alexis Warren (17.Tavon Hamilton 87), 16.Caleb Jacob (10.Josiah Oliver 76).

Unused substitutes: 2.Johnathan Preston, 11.Tyrese Wells, 19.Jaquan McMillan.

Coach: Theophilus Boyce.

Palo Seco Secondary (4-3-3): 1.Kristan Woods (GK) (captain); 17.Duriel Modeste, 3.Michael De Verteuil, 4.Kashaun Phillip, 9.Akil Baptiste; 13.Yasin Dyer, 14.Ezekiel Garcia, 11.Curlon Williamson; 6.Jalaen Jones (8.Makeem Gabriel 16), 10.Jeremiah Fermin, 21.Keon De La Rosa (7.Rashied John-Williams 58).

Unused substitutes: 2.Zakar Alexander, 5.De-Shaun Leander, 18.Nickel Chambers, 20.Elisha Greene, 22.Luke Madoo.

Coach: Jason Gross.

Referee: Jordan Cox.

SSFL Big Five

Round One

(Wed 29 October)

Mucurapo West Secondary 3 (Caleb Jacob 22, 62, Eli Williams 56), Palo Seco Secondary 1 (Ezekiel Garcia 3) at Mucurapo;

Presentation College (Chag) 0, Hillview College 7 (Aaden Jones 5, Kermarley Pierre 17, Jahmarley Ellis 43, Orlando La Fleur 48, 52, 90+1, Darnell Walcott 61) at Presentation;

Speyside Secondary are on a bye.

Round Two

(Sat 1 November)

Mucurapo West Sec v Hillview College, 3.30pm, Mucurapo;

Speyside Secondary v Presentation College (Chag), 3.30pm, Speyside;

Palo Seco Secondary are on a bye.