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Friday, August 8, 2025

Birchall distances himself from Fenwick's comments

by

Ryan Bachoo
1902 days ago
20200524
Chris Birchall

Chris Birchall

T&T’s 2006 World Cup foot­baller Chris Bir­chall has dis­tanced him­self from na­tion­al coach Ter­ry Fen­wick’s com­ments that he is help­ing to ex­pand the play­er pool for this coun­try’s se­nior men’s foot­ball team.

Speak­ing to the me­dia at the re­open­ing of the Po­lice Bar­racks Grounds in St James on May 8, Fen­wick said, “I al­so have to men­tion for­mer na­tion­al play­ers Ja­son Scot­land who is based in Scot­land, An­dre Bou­caud in Lon­don and Christo­pher Bir­chall. They were all at­tached to the na­tion­al team for a long time and now they are help­ing to widen the pool of play­ers for T&T and do­ing their part in help­ing us out.”

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with An­dre Bap­tiste on his Is­ports pro­gramme, the for­mer mid­field­er dis­so­ci­at­ed him­self from those re­ports.

He said, “There was an ar­ti­cle that came out in the Guardian that I was help­ing to find 'Tri­ni' blood abroad which I can cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly say to you now that wasn’t the case. I have had no con­tact with Trinidad what­so­ev­er. I wish Ter­ry [Fen­wick] all the luck in the world, but I haven’t spo­ken to him. I haven’t spo­ken to any­one about find­ing 'Tri­ni' roots abroad.”

Bir­chall went on to say it is some­thing he “would love to do” as it's dis­ap­point­ing to see the state of T&T foot­ball 15 years af­ter the coun­try qual­i­fied for its first and on­ly FI­FA World Cup.

The for­mer T&T foot­baller, who played 44 times for the na­tion­al team scor­ing four goals said, “There hasn’t re­al­ly been a low­er point than what there is now. Den­nis [Lawrence] leav­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly, Ter­ry Fen­wick tak­ing over and I wish him all the best but it’s just that build­ing process again and it’s frus­trat­ing to know that a team that qual­i­fied for the World Cup, the best com­pe­ti­tion in the world, is now at rock bot­tom.”

Hav­ing plied his trade in club foot­ball in both the Unit­ed States and the Unit­ed King­dom, Bir­chall has seen both the best and worst of T&T foot­ball. He be­lieves the de­par­ture of sev­er­al key play­ers from the na­tion­al team in the af­ter­math of the 2006 World Cup led to the down­fall of the T&T se­nior men’s team. How­ev­er, the biggest loss, Bir­chall be­lieves, was for­mer head coach Leo Been­hakker.

“Once the World Cup end­ed, Leo Been­hakker left, which is the best coach I have ever had in my life. He got the best out of me and got the best of the team. He knew ex­act­ly what an op­po­si­tion was go­ing to do be­fore a game. Then he left and it was like, ‘well what hap­pens now? It was like the whole nu­cle­us of the team left straight­away,” Bir­chall said.

Be­fore the pan­dem­ic, the 36-year-old was try­ing to set-up a foot­ball school which has since been de­layed be­cause of the coro­n­avirus out­break. He says he wants to teach young play­ers the game and give back to the sport. He ad­mit­ted near­ing the end of his ca­reer he fell out of love with the game but since his play­ing days have end­ed, he has missed the ac­tion on the field.


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