Streetball champs rue coronavirus impact
Gold is Money Captain Hubert ‘Bertie’ Pedro says that the current Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the 2020 season of the Streetball Championship, adding that he hopes for an eventual resumption of the tournaments.
This was revealed during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport yesterday. He stated, “It has affected the season a lot, first of all players can’t train at the moment. At the end of the day they are guidelines you have to follow. In terms of preparation for these events, there is often a gathering because people view your training and sometimes you travel to train and you can’t know the status of everyone.”
He added, “We have to follow the necessary guidelines. We all know with the streetball, there are fans, it’s a big difference between that and field football, the fans tend to be much closer and you can’t play in an empty stadium. We don’t know when we will get the green light, we hope as soon as possible but everyone is missing the sport not just myself.”
Gold is Money is the second most successful street-ball team of the current era, behind eternal rival Sparta Boss. Presently the West Front Road unit are two-time defending Guinness ‘Greatest of the Streets’ Georgetown champions, as well as the 2018 Guinness national champion.
According to Pedro, “Before this situation I was already missing football with injury and as this disease happened, a whole pause came into football and we can’t go out and compete. Sports is a part of everyone and with what is going on right now, everyone is on pause and it’s basically home workouts and exercise. We have to stay safe and follow the guidelines because we see the impact on the world. It really has slowed things down and everyone misses football but we can’t just go out there and play with anyone, we have to maintain social distancing.”
Quizzed if the team is training in anticipation of a possible resumption, he said, “We are not getting to go out and train but I created a workout plan for the players. If we are home all the time and not doing anything we will gain weight and lose fitness so we have an exercise plan for days so when we get out there to eventually compete, we will mesh with each other.” Pedro added, “We have a plan to maintain fitness through home workouts. While it can’t guarantee complete fitness, it is the best remedy for now. This situation also gives players a chance to recover from injuries though.”
Asked how important are the Streetball tournaments to the teams and the communities which they emanate from, he affirmed, “I have always mentioned when its streetball, especially Guinness, it’s very important to the communities. It’s always about the title, the fans can say their team have this amount of trophies and it gives the communities bragging rights. It does really highlight the communities and the fans are tracking the progress of the tournaments. It’s a great thing for the communities and it also provides an avenue for the youths to take them away from bad things.”
He added, “I want to tell everyone to follow the guidelines and the rules from the health authorities so they can be safe and protect their loved ones and family and friends. We have to play our part in fighting this virus and social distancing forms a part of that.”
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