Such a rar­i­ty to born in T&T,

You could see that as Lucky or un­lucky,

but once you live here, this is your fam­i­ly

So, if you are doubt­ing your abil­i­ty

Don’t diss we coun­try

Be­cause we are all in

We are Mighty, Mighty

We does make qual­i­ty men and women

We are Mighty, Mighty,

​— Song by Helon Fran­cis, “Mighty”

As the land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sports con­tin­ues to be­come more ob­scure yet more ac­ces­si­ble, one lin­ger­ing con­cern nev­er dis­si­pates: gen­uine sup­port­ers are rare.

True sup­port­ers of lo­cal sports are vir­tu­al­ly ex­tinct, with many old-stagers hav­ing passed away or be­come too ill to at­tend their favourite sport­ing events. Many peo­ple claim they sup­port sports, but these are mere words on the lips of so many who love to hear their own voice.

​Oth­ers fool them­selves in­to be­liev­ing that sup­port­ing a team “in their heart” with­out ac­tu­al­ly at­tend­ing match­es is enough. While that may sat­is­fy an in­di­vid­ual’s con­science, it fails to cap­ture the true mean­ing of be­ing a sup­port­er of a club, team, or coun­try.

​If some­one is sup­port­ing a team out­side the coun­try in which they re­side, then stay­ing home is com­plete­ly un­der­stand­able. But when your lo­cal club or na­tion­al team plays at home, say­ing “they are in my prayers” or “I will sup­port them from home” is sim­ply not good enough—pro­vid­ed you are healthy enough to at­tend.

​I say all of this be­cause we know it isn’t a mat­ter of cost. Tick­ets to a Na­tion­al Ath­let­ics Cham­pi­onship cost around $75, and a T&T foot­ball match runs be­tween $100 and $150. Yet at Car­ni­val time, peo­ple hap­pi­ly spend five to six hours on their feet and pay in ex­cess of $800 to $900 for fete tick­ets with­out com­plain­ing—even if the par­ty turns out to be rub­bish.

Per­son­al pref­er­ences aside, I be­lieve the core prob­lem in this coun­try is a lack of pa­tri­o­tism—per­haps stem­ming from up­bring­ing and a fail­ure to ap­pre­ci­ate the val­ue of be­ing a T&T cit­i­zen. That na­tion­al iden­ti­ty is thrown to the way­side when­ev­er con­ve­nient. Yet strange­ly, when these same peo­ple trav­el abroad and hear a steel­band, ca­lyp­so, or so­ca, or hear names like Ato Boldon, Bri­an Lara, Jereem Richards, Keshorn Wal­cott, Kieron Pol­lard, Dwayne Bra­vo, Sunil Nar­ine, Nicholas Paul, Machel Mon­tano, Kes, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Young Bred­da, Patrice Roberts, La­dy La­va, or De­stra, many then take recog­ni­tion of T&T as their own.

All of this re­lates to the “Fair Weath­er Fans” we have in this coun­try that con­stant­ly make the ex­cuse: “Them fel­las not good, why am I wast­ing my time. They’re mediocre; they can’t win …”

​I would like to ques­tion those who sent such mis­guid­ed re­spons­es when asked to come out and sup­port T&T’s na­tion­al foot­ball team on Sun­day in a cru­cial en­counter against the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. Sev­er­al play­ers plead­ed for the 3,000-plus crowd to lift their voic­es, but cre­at­ing an in­tim­i­dat­ing at­mos­phere in a sta­di­um built for over 20,000 was al­ways go­ing to be dif­fi­cult.

What is al­so cu­ri­ous and I am a very cu­ri­ous per­son (one who likes to ask ques­tions), is that many of those who did not at­tend watch foot­ball all over the world and wit­ness the true sup­port­ers in their num­bers, whether their team is win­ning or los­ing. I watched the faces of our play­ers as they heard the lit­tle noise that em­anat­ed from the small crowd. The play­ers ap­pre­ci­at­ed it and this sort of at­mos­phere as­sists all play­ers and the team. There is sup­posed to be some­thing called “home ad­van­tage”, but in T&T, there is noth­ing like that, as our op­po­nents feel at home giv­en the non-re­sponse of our lo­cal sup­port­ers.

How many of you are sup­port­ers of teams in the Pre­mier League, La Liga, Se­rie A or the Ger­man and French league and would glad­ly wear their team kit whether the team is los­ing or not?

Here are some prime ex­am­ples. Man­ches­ter Unit­ed has not won a league ti­tle in more than ten years, but their T&T fans re­main loy­al and bois­ter­ous; sim­i­lar­ly, Ar­se­nal did not win a Pre­mier League ti­tle for over 20 years, but their fans have re­mained stead­fast in faith; Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur fans ab­sorb a tremen­dous amount of abuse be­cause of their lack of suc­cess, but their fans have a firm be­lief and stand by them dili­gent­ly.

Per­haps the best ex­am­ple for many in Trinidad and To­ba­go is Barcelona, they have not won the Cham­pi­ons League in over ten years, but in T&T’s lan­guage­—Kill these T&T Barcelona fans dead—their team is the best and they proud­ly wear their jer­seys and be­lieve the next year will be bet­ter.

So why, I have to ask, is it that these very same fans do not show that same com­mit­ment for their na­tion­al teams, or na­tion­al Sports per­sons from the coun­try of their birth? All the flim­sy ex­cus­es are that it is not true love of coun­try but rather “fake” or “Band­wag­o­nism” sup­port that holds any true val­ue.

I al­so want to ad­dress those of you who open­ly say some of the fol­low­ing and most of you know your­selves:

“They just not good, and I not sup­port­ing medi­oc­rity.”

“I don’t like the ad­min­is­tra­tion of the sport, so I can­not sup­port.”

“If we lose, there will be changes, and if that hap­pens then I will re­turn.”

All of the above, and I know there are more, com­plete­ly en­cap­su­late the true men­tal­i­ty of most of you and iden­ti­fy self-serv­ing and self-in­ter­est along with stub­born­ness and ig­no­rance as the res­onat­ing call­ing card of all of those above.

I po­lite­ly ask: would any of you tru­ly “give up” on a fam­i­ly mem­ber, would “tru­ly walk away,” and would “tru­ly want them to be hurt and lose them­selves.” All be­cause you—yes, you did not get your own way.

This is what is need­ed if T&T is to progress in sports, as one coun­try in uni­ty.