Sun­der­land AFC Acad­e­my of Light Man­ag­er, Ged Mc­Namee and Acad­e­my Coach, Carl­ton Fair­weath­er will be in T&T this week for a three-day soc­cer coach­ing clin­ic host­ed by Dig­i­cel for T&T Pro League play­ers and coach­es. Day One of the coach­ing clin­ics on Sat­ur­day will com­prise a "Coach the Coach" ses­sion where coach­es from the Pro League will be put through their paces and giv­en some in­sid­er tips and tricks by Mc­Namee and Fair­weath­er in the Dig­i­cel Box at Queen's Park Oval, Tra­garete Road. Days Two and Three (Sun­day and Mon­day) of the three-day foot­ball ex­trav­a­gan­za will see 40 of T&T's most tal­ent­ed Un­der-15 play­ers (four play­ers from each of the Pro League clubs) tak­ing part in coach­ing ses­sions, tech­ni­cal tests, ques­tion and an­swer ses­sions and small-sided games at the King George V Park–in the build-up to the clos­ing friend­ly match on Mon­day af­ter­noon.

T&T Pro League Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Dex­ter Skeene ap­plaud­ed the ini­tia­tive put on by Dig­i­cel say­ing, "To im­prove the stan­dard of play; to be com­pet­i­tive in Con­ca­caf; to con­tin­u­ous­ly pro­duce young top class per­form­ers who can com­pete on the world stage, it is im­per­a­tive that train­ing is of­fered to coach­es and young play­ers. "It is nec­es­sary to ex­pose coach­es to in­ter­na­tion­al and ex­pe­ri­enced coach­ing cours­es to gain new ideas and in­sights in­to mod­ern meth­ods be­ing ap­plied to­day in the top leagues. "It is al­so im­por­tant for youths to hear from for­eign coach­es, new teach­ings and some of the same ideas that they re­ceive from their own coach­es which would in­spire a high­er lev­el of con­fi­dence in our lo­cal coach­ing fra­ter­ni­ty. "And we thank Dig­i­cel for their con­tin­ued un­der­stand­ing and ef­forts at con­tribut­ing to de­vel­op­ment at all lev­els of the league," end­ed Skeene.

Speak­ing about his trip to T&T, Mc­Namee, said: "As a club, we're com­mit­ted to get­ting out there and un­cov­er­ing foot­ball tal­ent at grass roots lev­el–as such, I am re­al­ly look­ing for­ward to see­ing what the T&T tal­ent is like. Back in the au­tumn, Sun­der­land AFC host­ed the eight suc­cess­ful boys from the Caribbean leg of the Dig­i­cel Kick Start Clin­ics for the sec­ond suc­ces­sive year for a train­ing week and we were re­al­ly im­pressed with their skills, their at­ti­tude and their ma­tu­ri­ty so we're ex­pect­ing great things next week. Who knows, we may even be lucky enough to un­cov­er the next (T&T) Ken­wyne Jones!" Kier­an Fo­ley, Group Di­rec­tor of Mar­ket­ing for Dig­i­cel, com­ment­ed: "We're al­ways look­ing for new ways to de­vel­op and sup­port the great youth foot­ball tal­ent that this re­gion has to of­fer so we're de­light­ed to be build­ing on our great part­ner­ship with Sun­der­land AFC.

"The eight boys who spent a week at the Acad­e­my of Light in Sep­tem­ber tru­ly had a once in a life­time ex­pe­ri­ence and learned in­valu­able lessons from some of the world's best coach­es–ex­pe­ri­ence that has been ev­i­dent in their games ever since. We're re­al­ly ex­cit­ed to show Ged and Carl­ton what Trinidad & To­ba­go has to of­fer."