Naz Ya­coob

Glow­ing trib­utes were paid to found­ing mem­ber of the Mo­hammed's Elec­tri­cal Crick­et and Coach­ing Acad­e­my (Meca), Rous­tam Mo­hammed, who passed away ear­li­er this month. Mo­hammed was the fa­ther of well-known in­ter­na­tion­al sports jour­nal­ist Fazeer Mo­hammed. Ac­cord­ing to co-or­di­na­tor of Meca, Sookdeo Ra­goo­nanan, the acad­e­my cel­e­brat­ed its 15th an­niver­sary with a gala func­tion last month and Mo­hammed was his usu­al ac­tive self dur­ing the well at­tend­ed cer­e­mo­ny. Ra­goo­nanan not­ed the acad­e­my caters for stu­dents from six to 16 years with crick­et from Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly and foot­ball from Sep­tem­ber to De­cem­ber with the Aranguez Sa­van­nah be­ing one of the main venues.

He said the aim of the acad­e­my was not on­ly to de­vel­op skill­ful crick­eters and foot­ballers but to pro­duce ex­cel­lent cit­i­zens of T&T. "In fact, Mr Rous­tam Mo­hammed in­tro­duced the four prin­ci­ples for a healthy lifestyle–love God, love par­ents, love school and love sports. This is now es­tab­lished lega­cy ded­i­cat­ed to Mr Mo­hammed. He dis­played over­whelm­ing love for chil­dren and the com­mu­ni­ty.

"On re­flec­tion, the Aranguez Club House strate­gi­cal­ly sit­u­at­ed in prox­im­i­ty to the San Juan Riv­er Bridge, will serve as a last­ing mem­o­ry of Mr Mo­hammed, who was in­stru­men­tal in its con­struc­tion and main­te­nance," Ra­goo­nanan said. He said at the end of the 2009 foot­ball grad­u­a­tion, Mo­hammed re­marked to some of the mem­bers, "With­out you guys, the acad­e­my will not func­tion so well." "Nev­er in our wildest dream and imag­i­na­tion could we recog­nise that Mr Mo­hammed was say­ing good-bye," said Ra­goo­nanan.