Sports in T&T suf­fered an­oth­er ma­jor loss with the death of foot­ball icon Sed­ley "Skip" Joseph, for­mer men’s na­tion­al se­nior team cap­tain and Hall of Fame in­ductee who passed away on Mon­day at the age of 80. Joseph was ail­ing for some time with his kid­neys.

Trib­utes con­tin­ue to pour in for the for­mer St Mary’s Col­lege and Maple club mid­field­er, who was con­sid­ered one of the gi­ants of the lo­cal game from the 1950s through to the 1970s, thrilling fans with his ac­cu­rate pass­ing of the ball and com­po­sure.

Vet­er­an Foot­baller Foun­da­tion of T&T (VF­FOTT) pres­i­dent Sel­by Browne, speak­ing of his late friend, said: "The 'Skip' was an out­stand­ing in­di­vid­ual. As a na­tion­al cap­tain in­stilled up­right­ness, dis­ci­pline, in­tegri­ty and hard work which were re­quired to rep­re­sent T&T at the high­est lev­el in foot­ball and the oth­er 14 dis­ci­plines.

"His lead­er­ship as a young man in the ear­ly 60s, fol­lowed in the foot­steps of his broth­er Alan Joseph, who cap­tained Maple to three straight Port-of-Spain League Cham­pi­onships, a feat which Sed­ley re­peat­ed for the team for­mer­ly called 'The Gov­ern­ment' be­tween 1960-1963.

"In those days, we ex­port­ed foot­ballers not on­ly to the Unit­ed King­dom as was seen with Shay Sey­mour and Matthew Nunes. We al­so ex­port­ed foot­ballers to Venezuela, a place where Alan Joseph and Neville 'Wat­ty' Dou­glas dis­played their skill. When Alan re­turned to Trinidad and he chest-trapped the foot­ball in front of the Grand Stand in Port-of-Spain he was called 'Cara­cas' sig­ni­fy­ing that he learnt that in Venezuela."

Browne met Joseph through his cousin, for­mer Malvern great Arthur 'Jap' Browne, who com­pet­ed against Joseph (Sed­ley) and played with him on na­tion­al teams.

"Arthur, who was fierce­ly com­pet­i­tive, had great re­spect for Joseph and held him in high es­teem. I re­spect­ed him great­ly from that day and he has pro­vid­ed me with guid­ance, ad­vice and en­cour­age­ment as he did with many play­ers with whom he in­ter­act­ed.

"I re­mem­ber long ago there used to be skill com­pe­ti­tions and one was usu­al­ly held at the Aranguez Sa­van­nah. I was in the fi­nal five and the T&T cap­tain was in the line-up. Sed­ley went on to win the com­pe­ti­tion and came to me af­ter and said, 'Good ef­fort, you had me scared there for a while'. That was the cal­i­bre of the man."

When it came to the na­tion­al in­stru­ment, steel pan, Browne shared that Sed­ley was "a Des­per­a­does for life.

"He would not miss a Panora­ma and could be found in front of Des­per­a­does band. He was proud to be Des­per­a­does! He al­ways said, 'There are many steel­bands but there is on­ly one steel or­ches­tra—Des­per­a­does."

Ac­cord­ing to Browne Joseph's con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion was out­stand­ing in his pro­fes­sion­al ca­pac­i­ty as a Cus­toms of­fi­cer for sev­er­al decades and af­ter his re­tire­ment, served as a sports re­porter for the Red­i­fu­sion Group.

"I re­mem­ber in 2001, he man­aged a large re­gion­al sports broad­cast team for my com­pa­ny CSTN to Zim­bab­we for two months, for the West In­dies tour to Zim­bab­we in a Tri­an­gu­lar Se­ries that in­clud­ed In­dia.

"His con­tri­bu­tion to sports in T&T demon­strat­ed his com­mit­ment at all times to club, league and na­tion. He was stead­fast in his ded­i­ca­tion, in­tegri­ty and self­less­ness and al­ways demon­strat­ed his vest­ed faith and de­vo­tion to God. I must on be­half of VFOTT and my­self ex­tend my con­do­lences to Joseph's daugh­ters Monique and Nichola and the rest of the Joseph fam­i­ly."

Gal­ly re­mem­bers 'Skip­per'

Foot­ball icon and for­mer "Strike Squad" and na­tion­al coach Ever­ard "Gal­ly" Cum­mings spoke glow­ing­ly about Joseph, who cap­tained T&T for its first-ever World Cup qual­i­fy­ing match on Feb­ru­ary 7, 1965, when the hosts whipped Suri­name 4-1 at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port-of-Spain.

As a 15-year-old in 1965, Gal­ly was se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent the Joseph-led T&T unit.

"I was a very young man and Sed­ley Joseph was the cap­tain of the team. That was the year when my club Paragon won the Port-of-Spain League ti­tle from Maple af­ter they won that ac­co­lade for three con­sec­u­tive years. I re­mem­ber, 1964 be­cause that was my first Port-of-Spain League suc­cess and I had to cel­e­brate with my broth­er Philbert and friend Clyde Blondell who were both on that Paragon team," said Gal­ly.

"As the 'ba­by' of the team, Sed­ley wel­comed me to the team and he made me feel com­fort­able. Even when we played he would as­sist me by tak­ing his time to come across to me and told me, take it easy if I was not hav­ing a good day. He helped mo­ti­vate us all.

"One must re­mem­ber at that time there were no youth tour­na­ments, you had to mix it up with the big men but the 'Skip­per' would make you feel com­fort­able. At that time, there was im­mense tal­ent around with the likes of Leroy Deleon, War­ren Archibald, Jan Stead­man," said Gal­ly, who was se­lect­ed to play in the Con­ca­caf Play-off in Ja­maica with Joseph, his cap­tain af­ter his per­for­mance in the North/South Clas­sic.

"At that time, the cal­i­bre of play­ers was high and the tal­ent was re­al­ly good. I was the ba­by of the team which is in­clud­ed Jean Mout­tet, Lin­coln ‘Tiger’ Phillips, Ald­wyn Fer­gus­son, Ty­rone de la Bastide, Clement Clarke, Doyle Grif­fith, Ken Fur­longe, Andy Ale­ong, Jeff Gellineau, Pat Small and Alvin Corneal.  

"The play­ers all had great re­spect for the cap­tain, Joseph. In clos­ing, Sed­ley was a good leader, who dis­charged his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as cap­tain dili­gent­ly, with dis­ci­pline, and al­ways ex­tend­ed an en­cour­ag­ing word to his team­mates to get the best out of them."

Con­do­lence mes­sages from FI­FA, Con­ca­caf

FI­FA pres­i­dent Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no and al­so head of Con­ca­caf Vic­tor Mon­tagliani ex­pressed con­do­lences on the pass­ing for the for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain.

In­fan­ti­no said: "I would like to ex­press my sin­cer­est and heart­felt con­do­lences on the pass­ing of for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al play­er and leg­end, Sed­ley Joseph. Words seem in­ad­e­quate to ex­press the sad­ness we feel for this loss af­fect­ing T&T foot­ball.

"Dur­ing his ca­reer, Sed­ley cap­tained the na­tion­al team from 1964 to 1968, in­clud­ing for the coun­try’s first ever FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­er match in Feb­ru­ary 1965 against Suri­name, as well as on the oc­ca­sion of the Pan Amer­i­can Games in Cana­da in 1967, win­ning the bronze medal. At club lev­el, Sed­ley will be re­mem­bered for his ca­reer at Maple club, where he led the team to nu­mer­ous tro­phies over the years.

"Con­sid­ered as one of the coun­try’s icon­ic play­ers, foot­baller of the year in 1967, in­duct­ed in the Hall of Fame for sport in 1987, hold­er of the Hum­ming­bird Medal Gold in 2005, and award­ed with the FI­FA Cen­ten­ni­al Or­der of Mer­it in 2004, his lega­cy and achieve­ments, and in par­tic­u­lar his per­son­al­i­ty, his skills and his lead­er­ship will not be for­got­ten, and he will be tru­ly missed.

"On be­half of the in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty, I wish to ex­tend our deep­est sym­pa­thy to the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), and to Sed­ley’s fam­i­ly, friends and loved ones. Our thoughts are with all of you.

"We hope that these mem­o­ries and our words of sup­port may help bring some peace and so­lace at this dif­fi­cult time."

Mon­tagliani was sup­port­ive as well in his words fol­low­ing the loss T&T's for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al play­er.

"Joseph was a leg­end in the foot­ball com­mu­ni­ty, he made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to foot­ball in T&T as an ex­cel­lent play­er at club and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el as well as an ex­cep­tion­al ad­min­is­tra­tor," said Mon­tagliani.

"He was clear­ly com­mit­ted to de­vel­op­ing foot­ball across the coun­try and did a huge amount of work while cap­tain­ing his coun­try and club. Joseph was well re­spect­ed due to his, skills, ded­i­ca­tion and lead­er­ship qual­i­ties."

The fu­ner­al ser­vice for the na­tion­al hero will be held at Fa­ti­ma RC church in Curepe at 9 am, with 90 pre-reg­is­tered guests.