The popular proverb, “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”, is one which is sig8nificantly applicable to the young sportsmen and women of the modern generation, as often times some of them find it hard to create the balancing to be successful at both.
As such, Co- Director of the Petra Organisation, Troy Mendonca says that creating a bond between sports and education is important for young players’ development.
Mendonca, speaking after hosting a successful 5th Court Pee-wee football schools football championship, the organiser felt that the “marriage” can occur if parents show their support.
We want have marriage between the two, sports and education, so if we can get the interest of the parents out at the football games, hopefully can get them to support the children to place the same emphasis on their books,” Mendonca explained.
Before the tournament, Mendonca had urged parents to be more supportive of their children since at this age, holistically, there are more winners than losers.
Quizzed on his if this mission was accomplished he posited that it has reduced to some extent and that the plan is to see it improve in the future.
Looking at the bigger picture, Mendonca says that organisation is proud that they are doing their part in the creating the avenue for young players to hopefully progress into national players.
“We had Guyana Football Federation (GFF) executives here during the matches and we hope we can work with them going forward but we can safely says that what we are doing our part of the bigger picture in developing footballers in Guyana.”
He added, “We had history created in that we had team won it back to back; when we started five years ago, the level of organisation among the teams was not there since the emphasis was just on playing and now we are seeing teams more organised”.
The championship which was played at the Banks DIH Thirst Park Ground for seven weeks saw St. Angela’s arising from the 24 participating city schools to be crowned two-time champions.
