'It's paradise': meet the Briton leading Cayman Islands to unrivalled success
Ben Pugh’s living room floods with light as he lifts the blinds to reveal a view that, more than ever in these times, makes the onlooker pine. “It’s paradise, I feel very lucky,” he says, gazing out over an azure Caribbean. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself a bit that I work in a job that gives me such a sense of fulfilment and challenge, and live in such a beautiful place.”
It is a blissful scene but Pugh’s place in the sun has been hard won. He did not know exactly what he was getting into when, at the end of 2018 and a year shy of his 30th birthday, he left a coaching role at Ipswich Town to take over at Academy Sports Club in the Cayman Islands. “I thought it would be a life experience even if it went badly,” he says, but instead things moved in the opposite direction. Seven months later he was appointed head coach of the British overseas territory’s national team; this week he will supervise World Cup qualifiers against Surinam and Canada, beginning with a trip to the former on Wednesday, in a twist he could never have envisaged while working his way through the youth setup in Suffolk.
Pugh has frequently been regaled with tales of a Caribbean Cup win over Jamaica in 1994, the islands’ most noteworthy international escapade, but he is on track to cast that into the shade. They have won four of his six games, defeating a vastly more experienced Barbados in their Concacaf Nations League group, and it is an unprecedented run for a team whose previous victory had come in 2010.
“Nobody expected us to do anything,” says Pugh of those half-dozen fixtures, which led to the Cayman Islands finishing runners-up on goal difference. “Expectations were so low, and we overachieved. I probably learned more over those games than in the previous five years, because you have to deal with so many different situations.”
Although he has two locally-born assistants, duties such as match analysis and sports science – in which he holds a degree – fall almost entirely on Pugh’s shoulders. Organisationally there have been hazards such as the team’s arrival for his first match, at the US Virgin Islands, an hour beforethe scheduled kick-off. They gathered themselves to win 2-0. He joined a federation keen to reboot after the corruption scandal involving Jeffrey Webb, the Caymanian former Fifa vicepresident who was banned in 2015. Results matter but Pugh doubles up as director of coaching and wants to leave a wider legacy.
“When I leave here I want to have upskilled people enough that a local person can take over, whether that’s in one year or five years,” he says. “I see it as a responsibility, as I’ve been given the chance to come here, to give something back and make sure the whole structure is in a better place.”
Titus Bramble and Liam Manning, who is in charge of City Football Groupowned Lommel in Belgium, are among former colleagues from Ipswich who have presented to the coaches’ association Pugh has founded locally. Pugh spent eight years working for the Suffolk club, where he was a season-ticket holder from childhood, after realising he was “OK, but not good enough” as a footballer.
At 16 he was coaching youngsters at Shotley Rangers, his village team. He has seven siblings and would put his youngest brother through training drills, a modest start that set him fair for what was initially voluntary work at Ipswich’s well-regarded academy, where he was lead youth development phase coach from under-12s to under-16s by the time he departed. The principles held by Mick McCarthy and Terry Connor stood out. “The gaffer and TC were outstanding people, so consistent,” he says. “Win, lose or draw they’d shake everyone’s hand the next day and be exactly the same. It’s something I’ve tried to bring into my way of acting.”
The chance to move 4,800 miles away came through a contact who used to bring young players from the Caribbean to Ipswich for training experience. “I had six weeks to pack up the house, sell everything and move to a place I’d never been,” he says. A job higher up the chain at Portman Road would have materialised in time but one question screamed out at him: “Do I want to live in Ipswich for the rest of my life, or take a risk?”
Grand Cayman, the largest of the three islands, is “like a big village”. The territory’s population is about 65,000 and it makes for a small, tight-knit football scene. Pugh’s squad is almost entirely local, with barely any recourse to the diasporas other Caribbean islands can call up, and most live ordinary lives.
He reels off a list: “One’s a jeweller, another is a taxi driver, a couple work in a bank, a couple in the hospital, one or two are in construction and a few are still studying.” The technical level quickly impressed him: more of an issue was the “bit of tactical knowledge or psychological element” that he hopes regular competition against sides such as their forthcoming opponents will instil.
In one sense, preparation to face Surinam and Canada has been straightforward: the Cayman Islands are Covidfree and he has had unfettered access to most of his charges for twice-weekly training. “It’s a massive advantage because we have a clear gameplan and time to work on things,” he says. “We might not have better players but we’ll have that organisation.” A de facto team of foreign-based players on the islands have been among those giving them friendly practice.
Given Surinam can name a squad packed with Europe-based talent and Canada may yet be able to enlist Alphonso Davies, that discipline may go only so far. Pugh has taken the Cayman Islands from 206th to 193rd in the Fifa rankings but they have never won a World Cup game, which they stand a better chance of putting right against fellow Group B contenders Bermuda and Aruba.
“Look at that Canada game – it’ll be streamed around the world,” he says. “I’m telling the players this is their platform: you all have aspirations of playing overseas so if you play well, if you’re willing to fight, work hard, are good on
the ball and well organised, someone might take a chance on you.”
Pugh knows all about seizing his own opportunity. If he could write the script then one day the path will take him back to the manager’s office at Ipswich, but that glistening vista outside his house proves there is little point in making predictions.
“I saw Julian Nagelsmann talking about not just getting experiences, but the right quality of experiences,” he says. “That’s something I now have. I might be only 31 but I’ve coached six Nations League games and now we’re going into these World Cup qualifiers. I’ve worked hard for it: I’ve taken that gamble to come overseas, and it’s paid off. It could have gone the other way, but in football you can never plan your journey.”