Shaun Fuentes

Mid­dles­brough de­fend­er Justin Hoyte said he's pre­pared to com­mit to T&T and wants to play right in­to the 2018 World Cup cam­paign.

Hoyte made his de­but for this coun­try in Tues­day's 4-0 loss to Ro­ma­nia and at age 28 be­lieves he has a lot to of­fer.

"It was a tough match to make my de­but but it was a very ben­e­fi­cial ex­er­cise for the team and I was hap­py to be part of every­thing. Ro­ma­nia is a big coun­try in Eu­rope and they've done very well over the years. I think there would be a lot we can take out of the ex­pe­ri­ence," Hoyte said.

Com­ment­ing on his de­ci­sion not to join the T&T squad back in 2005/2006, Hoyte ex­plained his sit­u­a­tion at the time.

"Ob­vi­ous­ly, I was much younger and I was at Ar­se­nal at the time and I want­ed to keep my op­tions open. I was flat­tered by all the in­ter­est but now I look back, I won't say I re­gret my de­ci­sion be­cause T&T has kept in­ter­est in me and here I am now ful­ly com­mit­ted to the cause. That's the most im­por­tant thing for me at the mo­ment.

"I'm will­ing to give my all and even play as much as I can to help the coun­try and even pass on my knowl­edge to the oth­er guys in years to come. I'll do what­ev­er I can to help T&T."

The for­mer Ar­se­nal play­er not­ed that he was still pleased to be play­ing at a high lev­el in Eng­land.

"I left Ar­se­nal and be­came a play­er with Mid­dles­brough and ob­vi­ous­ly it was a bit tough be­cause we went down from the Pre­mier­ship when I first moved there and we've strug­gled to get back up this sea­son but we'll keep plug­ging away. I'm glad to be part of the set up and I'll con­tin­ue to give my best."

Wal­ters says all'swell in Stoke camp

Stoke City strik­er Jon Wal­ters is as­sur­ing that all is well in the Stoke City camp, fol­low­ing the re­cent dress­ing-oom in­ci­dent in which Ken­wyne Jones found a pig's head in his lock­er. That fol­lowed Glenn Whe­lan hav­ing his car wind­screen smashed.

This all hap­pened dur­ing the fi­nal days of pre­vi­ous man­ag­er Tony Pulis' sev­en-year reign at the Bri­tan­nia Sta­di­um.

Jones lat­er apol­o­gised, of­fered to pay for the dam­age and blamed the in­ci­dent on a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty. He al­so de­nied at­tack­ing Michael Owen's car.

And now Wal­ters has en­tered the fray by rub­bish­ing talk of a split in­side the dress­ing room�and sug­gest­ing the Whe­lan-Jones bust-up was just end-of-sea­son ban­ter.

The Re­pub­lic of Ire­land play­er said: "There's no prob­lem with the spir­it. We're all still mates. These things go on.

"Lots of stuff like this hap­pens at clubs that no one ever hears about. It's just that this was some­thing that every­one did hear about. But it's not un­usu­al. I've heard a few sto­ries this week, while with Ire­land, about worse things go­ing on at oth­er clubs. It was just a bit of fun�and it's good to have that."

UAE in­cludes T&Tin Asian Cup prep

Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) will in­clude T&T in its slate of warm-up match­es for a cru­cial Asian Cup qual­i­fi­er against Hong Kong in Oc­to­ber.

The UAE will hold a train­ing camp in Chi­na from Oc­to­ber 1-12 but be­fore that will take part in a tour­na­ment in Sau­di Ara­bia along­side T&T, Qatar and New Zealand in Sep­tem­ber, ac­cord­ing to the Gulf News.

UAE head coach Mah­di Ali said he was look­ing for­ward to the games.

"These match­es will be cru­cial to our prepa­ra­tions. We have a train­ing camp in Chi­na and al­so the tour­na­ment in Sau­di Ara­bia. The match against Hong Kong is of great im­por­tance," Ali said on Sat­ur­day.

"We have to win the points be­cause it will put us at the top of the group and we might se­cure our berth in the fi­nals, or we will be need­ing one more win in the sec­ond round of the qual­i­fiers to reach Aus­tralia."

T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (TTFF) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Shel­don Phillips con­firmed that T&T will par­take in the tour­na­ment.

"We got the in­vi­ta­tion and ac­cept­ed. It will be an ho­n­our for us to be part of this tour­na­ment. We think it's a good idea to have the T&T na­tion­al team play against teams like Sau­di Ara­bia, the UAE and Qatar where foot­ball is con­tin­u­ous­ly de­vel­op­ing as they look ahead to host­ing the World Cup in 2022.

"These out­ings are not on­ly good for the on-the-field ac­tion but al­so in terms of us as an as­so­ci­a­tion form­ing new re­la­tion­ships and ties with oth­er mem­bers of the glob­al foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty," Phillips said.

Bir­chall signs ex­ten­sion at Port Vale

Mid­field­er Chris Bir­chall signed a new one-year ex­ten­sion to his con­tract with Eng­lish club Port Vale last month pri­or to join­ing the T&T squad for the friend­lies against Ro­ma­nia and Es­to­nia.

He was among a list of play­ers in­clud­ing Sam John­son, Louis Dodds and Tom Mor­ris, who have signed new con­tracts with Port Vale.

"Port Vale has been good to me and I've de­cid­ed to sign on for an­oth­er year. I'm hap­py at the club and it's close to home. I'm en­joy­ing things there," Bir­chall said.

The for­mer LA Galaxy play­er took the cap­tain's arm­band from Den­sill Theobald in the sec­ond half of T&T's 4-0 loss to Ro­ma­nia in Bucharest on Tues­day.

"It's al­ways a big ho­n­our to cap­tain your na­tion­al team. I haven't led the na­tion­al side from the kick off as yet but I'm just re­al­ly proud of be­ing part of the squad and be­ing able to wear the arm­band.

"I'll con­tin­ue giv­ing it my all for the na­tion­al team and hope­ful­ly be part of the Gold Cup squad and go on to help­ing T&T climb back up on the rank­ings and bring some re­spectabil­i­ty back to the foot­ball."

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for the So­ca War­riorsTTFF.

?shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com