Progressive Mount Pleasant eager to get ball rolling in Premier League
DRAX HALL, St Ann — Mount Pleasant Football Academy (MPFA) are eagerly awaiting the start of the Premier League and to hopefully pick up from where they left off in last season’s aborted competition.
MPFA were second in the tables on 53 points, one behind former champions Waterhouse FC, after 29 of the 33 preliminary round games were played and were confident they were well on their way to presenting St Ann with their first national club football title.
However, the plug was pulled in May, two months after the organisers had ordered all games to be stopped after the novel coronavirus got to the island and the season was ruled null and void.
The new season, which will be played under new sponsorship because the contract with Red Stripe ended, was supposed to have kicked off last weekend, but the start has been pushed back by at least another three weeks for the time being.
David Galloway, the MPFA manager, says they were hoping the season had started, but added they understood the situation.
“We wish the league would have started, but it is beyond our control. This pandemic has placed a big crack on everything in the world,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
“We are doing a little training as we try our best to maintain the protocols [set out] for the COVID-19, and all our players and fans are awaiting now [the new] start date,” Galloway added.
MPFA have one of the biggest fan bases of any team in the Premier League and Galloway says they “are a bit disappointed that no spectators will be allowed at game venues”.
“They [fans] understood what’s happening, but at least they will have the chance to see the games televised, because football is there hobby,” Galloway noted.
MPFA lost one player from their squad when Johann Weatherly left for Dunbeholden
FC, and the St Ann club’s manager said no other transfer has been made, which meant a high rentention of last season’s squad.
“We think that this squad we have here is deep and we are happy with what we have and we are ready for another season, so we are good with what we have. All we want is for football to start play as soon as possible,” Galloway explained.