T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) and Strike Squad Com­mit­tee mem­bers both ex­tend­ed deep­est con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, friends, and for­mer team­mates of Ricky Nel­son, for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er and proud mem­ber of the 1989 “Strike Squad,” who passed away on Wednes­day af­ter a pe­ri­od of ill­ness.

Nel­son, 61, served the red, white, and black with com­mit­ment and dis­tinc­tion, rep­re­sent­ing T&T dur­ing a gold­en era that in­spired a na­tion.

"His con­tri­bu­tions on and off the field re­main part of our foot­balling lega­cy, and he will be re­mem­bered for the pas­sion, dis­ci­pline, and pride he brought to the game. We join the lo­cal foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty in mourn­ing his loss while cel­e­brat­ing the life he lived and the ex­am­ple he set. May his soul rest in eter­nal peace," the TTFA re­lease stat­ed.

Nel­son, a de­fend­er, was one of three play­ers born in To­ba­go who made the fi­nal se­lec­tion to the T&T men's na­tion­al foot­ball team (Strike Squad) for the 1990 World Cup Qual­i­fy­ing ef­forts, with Colvin Hutchin­son, cur­rent na­tion­al se­nior men's coach Dwight Yorke, the oth­er two mem­bers.

"Ricky was men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly a strong in­di­vid­ual, he spoke very lit­tle, a gen­tle gi­ant, de­fend­er by na­ture but played any po­si­tion in the back-four dur­ing his na­tion­al team and lo­cal club rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

"He was one of sev­en mem­bers of the T&T De­fence Force and now the third play­er from the 1989 Strike Squad Camp to have tran­si­tioned to the greater be­yond af­ter the pass­ing of Lar­ry Joseph and Ron­nie Charles."

Ac­cord­ing to the Strike Squad Com­mit­tee mem­bers, Nel­son was tru­ly a team play­er, de­spite not be­ing a reg­u­lar starter in the squad dur­ing the 1989 qual­i­fy­ing rounds, he al­ways dis­played pro­fes­sion­al­ism dur­ing prac­tice ses­sions and when se­lect­ed for games.

Re­call­ing his res­olute at­ti­tude and de­ter­mi­na­tion at a train­ing ses­sion on a mud­dy field at our camp in For­est Re­serve, for­wards vs de­fend­ers, Strike Squad cap­tain Clay­ton Mor­ris said, "Ricky, de­fend­ing against his coun­try­man Dwight Yorke, 'bago bago' clever and skil­ful as Dwighty was, he couldn't get past Ricky Nel­son.

"His words to Dwight, 'Du­flair know what you do­ing boy', 'I am not tak­ing no pris­on­ers'. This was re­al­ly fun and some cher­ished mem­o­ries of the in­di­vid­ual Ricky was. This al­so con­tributed to not just the team at that time, it al­so played a crit­i­cal role to­wards the play­er Dwight Yorke turned out to be for the coun­try and by ex­ten­sion the world.

"Ricky's pass­ing is very sad for all of us. To mem­bers of his fam­i­ly and friends, please note the 1989 Strike Squad mem­bers, to­geth­er with our re­spec­tive fam­i­lies, are with you. Our prayers are that God will grant you all strength through these dif­fi­cult times. Jah bless­ings."