KC’s ‘Sala’ Lewis remembers epic ‘George T’ half-time talk
WITH KINGSTON College (KC) down 1-0 in last week’s ISSA/Digicel Manning Cup final, coach Ludlow Bernard must have given a monumental half-time talk to drive his boys to a dramatic 3-2 victory over St George’s College.
The same could be assumed of Lenny Hyde, whose Clarendon College team entered the locker room for half-time a man down in last Saturday’s encounter with Cornwall College in the ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup final. Thoughts of what Hyde and Bernard might have said bring to mind the most famous half-time talks in schoolboy football history.
Kingston College’s 1986 football campaign turned on an inspiring one-liner from legendary coach George ‘George T’ Thompson. Facing a fine Wolmer’s aggregation, Kingston College needed to win by five clear goals to advance to the knockout stage, but the first half ended 0-0.
FORTIS SPIRIT
“He said just one sentence at half-time”, recalled Errol ‘Sala’ Lewis, a goalscorer on that 1986 KC team. “He said, ‘Guys, you got yourselves in this position, only you can get out of it’.”
There was no talk about tactics, Lewis thought back during a 2016 interview.
“That’s all he said and everyone was quiet for like about five minutes”, Lewis reminisced. “I knew something special was going to happen.”
Something special did happen. Though the scoring stayed even until there were 20 minutes to go, Kingston College surged to a 5-0 victory.
“That was like the true Fortis spirit and that was really all because of George T”, he said.
Last’s week’s Kingston College triumph was sparked by the second-half introduction of Trayvon Reid, who caught Lewis’ eye in the 2016 KC-St George’s College Roper Cup festival of football.
“I saw Trayvon Reid and I said, ‘This is it, this is it.’”
Reid scored the first goal in the KC fightback at the National Stadium last week and was a constant menace to the St George’s College defence.
Reid is the nephew of former national player Roderick Reid.
Kingston College meets Clarendon College tomorrow inside the National Stadium to play for the Olivier Shield, the traditional symbol of supremacy in schoolboy football.
The Purples last won the coveted trophy when Lewis played in 1986. The Clarendonians took the Shield home last in 1998 when they shared it with Dunoon Technical High.