NIGEL SI­MON

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T Hock­ey Board has ap­point­ed Glenn “Fi­do” Fran­cis as the head coach of the se­nior na­tion­al women’s hock­ey team, re­plac­ing An­tho­ny “Bumper” Mar­cano, who re­signed his po­si­tion fol­low­ing the team’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2022 Pan Amer­i­can Cup held in San­ti­a­go, Chile ear­li­er this year.

Mar­cano served as head coach to the team for rough­ly four years tak­ing the team to a bronze medal at the 2018 Cen­tral Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CAC) Games on his first ven­ture out while the 49-year-old Fran­cis re­turns to the na­tion­al coach­ing set-up less than a year af­ter he was re­placed as men’s head coach by Dar­ren Cowie who guid­ed the men to a sev­enth-placed fin­ish in Chile at the Pan Amer­i­can Cup in Jan­u­ary.

Fran­cis brings with him a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence, as well as his com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence and high-lev­el per­for­mance.

Be­fore he en­tered the coach­ing are­na, “Fi­do” as he is known in hock­ey cir­cles, rep­re­sent­ed T&T as a goal­keep­er for 15 years af­ter which, he tran­si­tioned in­to the field of coach­ing and re­ceived his first ma­jor coach­ing ap­point­ment in 2010 as an as­sis­tant coach to the se­nior men’s team, and then as head coach in 2012, a po­si­tion he held for sev­en years un­til the 2019 Pan Amer­i­can Games.

Un­der his stew­ard­ship, the team won a gold medal at the in­au­gur­al FIH World League Round 1 in 2012, a bronze medal at the Pan Amer­i­can Cup in No­vem­ber 2013, and the CAC Games the team medaled twice, win­ning sil­ver and bronze in 2014 and 2018 re­spec­tive­ly.

“Fi­do” is no stranger to women’s hock­ey as he ac­cept­ed the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in 2012 to al­so lead the Se­nior Na­tion­al Women’s Team, whilst in charge of the Men’s Team. This po­si­tion he held un­til 2013.

Dur­ing that time, he coached the women’s team to a bronze medal at the 2012 FIH World League Round 1 event and at the 2013 FIH World League Round II event which was held in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil.

Fran­cis is a cer­ti­fied FIH Lev­el III coach and ap­pren­ticed un­der the cur­rent Hol­land men’s as­sis­tant coach Er­ic Ver­boom, and has worked with the cur­rent as­sis­tant coach to Great Britain and Eng­land, Kwand­wane Browne, a for­mer T&T play­er, cap­tain and play­er/coach.

As he com­mences his new role, Fran­cis rec­og­nizes that sport in T&T is cur­rent­ly fac­ing chal­leng­ing times af­ter two years of lock­down and team sports re­stric­tions.

He un­der­stands the im­pact of this time away from the sport on the women and girls in sport and plans to use his ex­pe­ri­ence to pos­i­tive­ly in­flu­ence and de­vel­op this sec­tor of the hock­ey com­mu­ni­ty, build­ing on the work of his most re­cent pre­de­ces­sor.

His at­ten­tion to de­tail and work in both de­vel­op­men­tal and elite sport­ing en­vi­ron­ments has equipped him with the tools need­ed to help the team suc­ceed.

Com­ment­ing on his ap­point­ment, Fran­cis said it’s nice to be back in the na­tion­al coach­ing set-up.

He said, “I was out for a few years since the COVID pan­dem­ic and it’s go­ing to be a chal­leng­ing job when you haven’t coached for a while it’s go­ing to be some is­sues and you have to be men­tal­ly ready and the prepa­ra­tion has to be down pact.

“First I will need to see what I am get­ting in­to and what type of play­ers that I will be work­ing with and hope­ful­ly it should be okay.”

“Hav­ing coached the se­nior men’s team and now faced with the task of coach­ing the se­nior women again, Fran­cis says he does not see many chal­lenges.”

“As the coach, I have to cre­ate a good at­mos­phere for the play­ers and they have to un­der­stand where I am com­ing from our ma­jor chal­lenge is that we are not play­ing hock­ey, so we will have to tap in­to the school pro­grammes and the de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes and we don’t have any right now.”

“It’s just to get the play­ers back out and mo­ti­vat­ed and back in­to the pro­gramme and give each play­er a fair chance as coach by go­ing out there with an open mind.”

“Con­cern­ing the Na­tion­al Hock­ey Cen­tre and its con­tin­ued un­avail­abil­i­ty, Fran­cis said, “For hock­ey in gen­er­al I think that it is very im­por­tant and I keep say­ing from day one it is very em­bar­rass­ing to put down a mil­lion-dol­lar sur­face and the base of it is not good and its a few years now that fa­cil­i­ty is down,

“Yes we had COVID but it (no fa­cil­i­ty) has af­fect­ed very bad) and it al­so had a part to play with the teams leav­ing for a few tour­na­ments ago.”