STATHS re-energised by final run
St Andrew Technical High (STATHS) school’s return to the ISSA/ Digicel Manning Cup final has been greeted with excitement throughout the school community. According to principal Dr Worrell Hibbert, who took on the post in April 2019, the team’s success has uplifted the community’s spirits.
“It has energised the school community. It has really brought out the yearning and the hunger for success. I think what we are seeing in the school community now in their own way that the boys have stuck to their mission from the beginning of the competition, which was to win every match that they played,” he told STAR Sports. “And thanks be to God, they have done so and in doing so, the community is buzzing with excitement.”
STATHS are preparing to face Jamaica
College on Friday in the final for the second time in three years. Hibbert has credited the support of the alumni chapters locally and abroad for the assistance they have provided to the campaign.
“We have built a network of local and overseas alumni whose primary function was to help to prepare the boys mentally and physically as well as to provide any support,” he said. “We do all of these things with an effort to let the boys know that we are building one school community.”
Hibbert has praised the team for their success so far and says that their success has motivated their fellow classmates into achieving their own goals on the field and in the classroom.
“These crop of boys we have playing right now are some of the brightest boys that we have ever had don our gears in Manning Cup. We have students on this team who have their subjects and I think that approach, quasi academic approach, they have taken that sort of disciplined approach to passing subjects to doing well at playing football. That has translated into the school in a manner where students now recognise that listen we can do both. We can do well at sports and well at academics because a couple of these Manning Cup boys are a testimony to that.”
Should STATHS end their 32-year wait to lift the major schoolboy football trophy, Hibbert said that feeling would be indescribable. Although he notes that Jamaica College would be tough opposition, he says that the energy that the school has will give them a significant advantage to avenge their 2017 defeat to the ‘Dark Blues’ in penalties.
“The difference is the passion that we are taking into it. We are absolutely craving this victory and we have been playing steady, consistent football with an intent to grab that cup and bring it down to 64 Spanish Town Road,” he said.