Digicel T&T Pro League club, Adam's Construction San Juan Jabloteh chairman Jerry Hospidales has no doubt over the decision to contract former T&T international and Tewksbury Soccer Academy coach Earl "Spiderman" Carter as Director of Coaching/Head Coach for the 2011/2012 TT Pro League season which begins on Friday August 12. Last Friday the club unveiled Carter who responded to questions over his experience and ability to coach the club, having spent most of his time coaching youth footballers, mainly girls at Tewksbury Soccer Academy in the USA. "After an extensive search (Jabloteh) has decided to engage the services of Earl Carter as its Director of Coaching," Hospidales said. "Carter brings to the organisation solid credentials which involves not only a past affiliation with the club, but also a wealth of expertise at domestic and international levels.
"We now have the skill and the experience to continue the excellence that we've had in the past 37 years. And in the upcoming season we are extremely confident that we will continue to provide the national community with a product that we are extremely proud of. "We are reasonably sure that we are not taking a chance. We believe, looking at his past records, our successes as a club will be maintained. We have great confidence in Carter," assured the Jabloteh chairman. "Yes I coached girls, but not only girls," said the 55-year-old former New York Cosmos goalkeeper. "But I've also coached boys from the Under-10 to Under-19 level. We must not demonise a coach on his ability to coach because he is coaching girls. In fact, I can tell you that when you are coaching at the youth level, you're a teacher and when you're coaching at the senior level you're now managing. So coaching at the youth level is much more difficult. "So it must not be something negative because I'm coaching girls. We have some of our local coaches that coach the national women's teams and aren't they not good? So that's a fallacy to say such.
"I've gotten success with the girls and also had success with the boys. One must not forget that I once had the number one boys team in the whole of the United States," Carter boasted. Carter explained that his decision to return home and take up the Jabloteh post wasn't a difficult one. "I've always had an interest to come back home," he said. "I never wanted to leave (T&T) but after representing the "Strike Squad" in 1989 when we failed to qualify for the World Cup, I approached the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs telling them that there is an interest for me to go abroad but I'd rather stay and they never saw the need to create an opportunity for me to stay. "I had to leave because there was no other opportunity for me and that's what I really didn't want to do. And despite being out there, I was never happy because it was always dissatisfying for me to always see T&T lose against the Americans or other teams in Concacaf knowing that I can make a contribution but it was never created for me.