Shur­land David has be­come the first coach­ing ca­su­al­ty of the new 2011/2012 Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League sea­son af­ter he was sacked by San­gre Grande-based Di­recTV North East Stars on Mon­day. David, his as­sis­tants Arnold Dwari­ka and Lester Young, as well as team phys­io­ther­a­pist Mitchell Jones, were all dis­missed fol­low­ing the club's dis­mal start to the sea­son, three straight de­feats in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League and First Cit­i­zens Cup com­pe­ti­tions, com­bined. In their Pro League open­er on Sep­tem­ber 9, Stars went un­der to league debu­tant, T&TEC 2-1.

It was fol­lowed by a 4-1 loss against W Con­nec­tion on Sep­tem­ber 16, and Cale­do­nia, 2-0 on Sep­tem­ber 23, both in the First Cit­i­zens Cup quar­ter­fi­nal group play. The loss to Cale­do­nia on Fri­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo came as the last straw for for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er David as the sack­ing came on the eve of Tues­day's Pro League match against the same Cale­do­nia at Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya. Speak­ing about the sack­ing of David and his coach­ing staff, Stars' chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Brent San­cho, a for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er as well said, "Part­ing com­pa­ny with your head coach is nev­er an easy de­ci­sion, and it cer­tain­ly wasn't a de­ci­sion we took light­ly."

"We ap­pre­ci­ate Shur­land David's con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of North East Stars, and thank him for his ser­vice to the club. "How­ev­er, se­nior man­age­ment looked at the sit­u­a­tion and felt that in or­der to get the club back on tar­get to achieve our stat­ed aims, swift and de­ci­sive ac­tion need­ed to be tak­en." "A foot­ball team can some­times lose be­lief in them­selves, the club or the coach­ing staff and it is our job to re­lieve the pres­sure on the play­ers so that they can fo­cus on their next game. In many such cas­es, its a psy­cho­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­non, but it's very re­al," said San­cho. The 36-year-old David first took charge of Stars in June 2010 af­ter Amer­i­can Rob Un­der­wood part­ed ways with the club by mu­tu­al con­sent.

He then led the team to the Lu­cozade Sports Goal Shield, the run­ner-up spot in both the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy com­pe­ti­tion and Toy­ota Clas­sic and a sixth-placed league fin­ish.

With the ax­ing of David, Kevin Jef­frey, Stars' di­rec­tor of Foot­ball, San­cho and club pres­i­dent, Daryll Ma­habir took charge of the team for Tues­day's clash with Cale­do­nia, which end­ed in a 1-0 tri­umph for the San­gre Grande boys. Ma­habir said that every­one at the club wish Shur­land, Arnold, Lester and Mitchell good luck in their ca­reers. "We all hope to see these guys work­ing in Pro League foot­ball this sea­son as their knowl­edge and ded­i­ca­tion will be a plus for any team." North East Stars is card­ed to play De­fence Force on Oc­to­ber 22, but it is not known if the "Teteron Boys" will be able to com­pete due to re­stric­tions brought about by the state of emer­gency, so North East may have to wait un­til Oc­to­ber 25, to take on W Con­nec­tion.