On Au­gust 14, 2021, the mem­ber­ship of Vet­er­an Foot­ballers Foun­da­tion of T&T (VF­FOTT) joined with Kelvin "KB" Be­ras­sa’s wife, Eu­la Be­ras­sa, the chil­dren, grand­chil­dren, the en­tire fam­i­ly and dear friends, es­pe­cial­ly his "Cha Cha Cha", twin Clive Niles and all team­mates of the Malvern Club, the Reg­i­ment and the na­tion­al team of the 1960’s to bid farewell to the foot­ball leg­end, KB. He tran­si­tioned on Au­gust 7, 2021, at the age of 82, in At­lanta, Geor­gia where he resided.

As pres­i­dent of the VF­FOTT and my for­mer Malvern Sports Club foot­ballers, I ex­tend my con­do­lences Eu­la, the chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and the en­tire fam­i­ly, on be­half of the mem­ber­ship and friends of VF­FOTT. The ex­pres­sion of sym­pa­thy is al­so ex­tend­ed the mem­bers of the Malvern Sports Club, the Reg­i­ment, now De­fence Force and the en­tire foot­ball fam­i­ly of T&T.

As T&T’s leg­endary foot­baller of the 1960s, KB was out­stand­ing and his skil­ful tal­ent demon­strat­ed on the foot­ball field made his name well-known with foot­ball fans in sev­er­al house­holds. With con­fi­dence in his abil­i­ty, he in­spired his team­mates to per­form at the high­est-lev­el feel­ing as­sured they would de­feat any­one.

That strength in char­ac­ter, con­fi­dence and faith in God was the hall­mark of his life. His dis­ci­pline and dili­gent train­ing along with his hu­mour and clever quick think­ing ce­ment­ed the team spir­it. KB was al­ways ap­proach­able, will­ing to share his knowl­edge with hu­mil­i­ty and in his usu­al jovial man­ner.

When I re­ceived the calls from his team­mates, Clive and Tim Lam­bkin who asked me to call Eu­la right away, and a call from my broth­er Bri­an who host­ed KB and Eu­la in Mi­a­mi in June, it was clear­ly time for our col­lec­tive prayer to God with our re­quest that - His Will be done.

I wish to record the up­lift­ing words of trib­ute to KB from his team­mates of years Clive: “I have lost a broth­er in­deed” and Tim, who stat­ed KB’s ma­jor at­tribute on the foot­ball field was his abil­i­ty to cre­ate space for both him­self and his team­mates.

Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were al­so ex­pressed in praise for KB’s out­stand­ing char­ac­ter and lead­er­ship by Ul­ric “Bug­gy” Haynes who joined Malvern as a young­ster, Doyle Grif­fith who wel­comed KB to the na­tion­al team, Bob­by Sookram, Alvin Corneal, Ger­ry Browne and Vic­tor Gamal­do.

How well I re­call Leroy De Leon’s greet­ing when he first met KB at a Car­ni­val lime at the Queens Park Sa­van­nah in Port-of-Spain, years ago, when he re­peat­ed KB’s name in awe telling him as a lit­tle boy while play­ing foot­ball “I would tell them my name is Kelvin Be­ras­sa” - What a trib­ute. Lin­coln Phillips said KB was a trea­sure, his style of play lift­ed the per­for­mance of all the team­mates.

Ed­die Hart said KB was the com­plete foot­baller, he was an ex­cel­lent head­er of the ball, his run­ning off the ball was amaz­ing and even with his out­stand­ing drib­bling skills he was al­ways a team play­er.

How well I re­call my last phone call with ‘’KB” on May 29, when he stat­ed, “Bertram Grell whom he took un­der his wings as a young foot­baller on the na­tion­al team, was his dai­ly prayer part­ner, and they lived rel­a­tive­ly close to each oth­er in At­lanta”. He went on thank me for the trib­ute I did for his friend Ben Som­bra­no, and asked that I have a trib­ute done for­mer Colts Club and na­tion­al foot­baller of the 1960’s Hugh Mulzac, for his con­tri­bu­tion to T&T foot­ball in the 1960s. That’s to be done.

He lament­ed the loss of the an­nu­al north vs south pri­ma­ry schools match and the suc­cess­ful com­mu­ni­ty, in­ter-league and zon­al struc­ture that proved suc­cess­ful. He was them em­phat­ic and said, “you know the facts, please de­mand a re­turn to the struc­ture that worked well and built our foot­ball in the com­mu­ni­ties and zones”.

As a young­ster I was priv­i­leged to see and en­joy the high­est qual­i­ty foot­ball and wit­ness the crowds of sup­port­ers with bells and drums, bet­ting and shared eu­pho­ria at the oil com­pa­ny grounds in the South­ern Foot­ball League (SFL) and at Skin­ner Park, in the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA) when my fam­i­ly resided in Point Fortin, when I re­turned to re­side in north Trinidad, I al­so en­joyed the foot­ball mag­ic of the glo­ri­ous Wood­brook fa­mous Malvern Sports Club, the Glam­our Boys of the Port-of-Spain Foot­ball League, where sim­i­lar­ly the sup­port­ers cel­e­brat­ed with drums, bet­ting and danc­ing in shared eu­pho­ria.

The Kelvin Be­ras­sa Cha Cha Cha foot­ball en­ter­tain­ment was the best. That style of play was large­ly due to the many cre­ative skills, tal­ent and sharp­ness of mind of the leg­endary for­ward, Kelvin “KB” Be­ras­sa.

The spec­ta­tors were fas­ci­nat­ed and mes­merid­ed by the en­ter­tain­ing Malvern Cha Cha Cha dance and style of play, and the match­es were broad­cast live on the Voice of Red­i­fus­sion ra­dio sta­tions through­out the Caribbean with com­men­tary by the pop­u­lar Raf­fie Knowles. The pop­u­lar­i­ty and pro­fi­cien­cy of the Kelvin Be­ras­sa-style T&T foot­ball was enor­mous na­tion­al­ly and through­out the Caribbean.

As T&T cel­e­brates the 59th an­niver­sary of we all re­flect on the joy, ex­cite­ment and con­fi­dence, the strong feel­ing amongst foot­ball fans of the be­lief that we would suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenge any coun­try in the world. This re­flect­ed the sense of on­fi­dence that pre­vailed in our new na­tion. The con­fi­dence that in­formed the out­look of the en­tire T&T foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty at that time.

In fact, Dr Er­ic Williams, first Prime Min­is­ter of T&T, who was a sports en­thu­si­ast and played both crick­et and foot­ball at his al­ma mater Queens Roy­al Col­lege called on Er­ic James, TFA gen­er­al sec­re­tary to host a Good­will Se­ries be­tween the na­tion­al foot­ball teams of T&T and Suri­name who were recog­nised as the best in the re­gion, to com­mem­o­rate the out­stand­ing achieve­ment of In­de­pen­dence.

Dr Williams recog­nised the sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits and role of sport, foot­ball in par­tic­u­lar and the im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion of the steel­band sup­port­ers of the teams. He hoped for a huge vic­to­ry. Two match­es were played at the Queen's Park sa­van­nah and the third at Guaracara Park, Pointe a Pierre.

The huge T&T foot­ball fra­ter­ni­ty was dis­ap­point­ed the na­tion­al team did not win all three match­es, but with­in the first five-year pe­ri­od of na­tion­hood the na­tion­al team de­feat­ed both Ar­genti­na and Colom­bia. The re­sult was in the main due to the most skil­ful and pop­u­lar T&T foot­baller of the 1960s KB, who scored three of five goals for the T&T de­feat of Colom­bia 5-2, af­ter be­ing two goals down and al­so scored the goal to de­feat Ar­genti­na 1-0 in the Pan Amer­i­can Games 1967.

KB grew up in St Joseph and moved to Port-of-Spain where he at­tend­ed pri­ma­ry school and played for the north pri­ma­ry school team with Carl­ton Fran­co and their good friend Aldric “Son” Bap­tiste cap­tain of the south team. KB re­ceived a schol­ar­ship to at­tend the Pro­gres­sive Ed­u­ca­tion­al In­sti­tute like many of the oth­er Malvern play­ers an ini­tia­tive of Mr Hamil­ton Hold­er. He then played in the North­ern League and was an out­stand­ing goal scor­er, as a mem­ber of Malvern. The team won sev­er­al tro­phies some of which were the FA Tro­phy, the Best Dark Vir­ginia Cup, the Gov­er­nor’s Cup, Con­stan­tine Cup, Gold­en Chisholm Cup, and the Cham­pi­on of Cham­pi­ons Tro­phy.

When the Malvern nu­cle­us joined the Reg­i­ment, the suc­cess­ful tro­phy haul con­tin­ued.

As a na­tion­al play­er his record was played 25 match­es, scored 20 goals.

We give thanks and cher­ish the won­der­ful mem­o­ries of the suc­cess­ful his­toric Malvern team led by Carl­ton “The Gen­er­al” Fran­co which in­clud­ed, Arthur “Jap” Brown, KB, Ken Hodge, Ed­die Hart, Clive Niles, Tim Lam­bkin, Ken Hen­ry, Hamil Mur­ray with Clive Bur­nett “The Mi­lo Man” in goal. The Malvern for­ward line se­lect­ed for the Port-of-Spain Foot­ball League for­ward line.

This is the back­ground against which the leg­endary T&T foot­ball en­ter­tain­er of the 1960s, KB - “Mr Cha Cha Cha” of the pop­u­lar his­toric Malvern Sports Club demon­strat­ed his mag­ic with his team­mates win­ning match­es with the Harlem Globe Trot­ters style of en­ter­tain­ment.

“Thank You” Kelvin “KB” Be­ras­sa for the fond mem­o­ries that we shall al­ways cher­ish.

You lived your life with the tenets of our Malvern Club Mot­to: Vic­to­ria Con­cor­dia Cresc­it - Vic­to­ry Through Con­cord.

We all join in prayer that God warm­ly re­ceives Kelvin’s soul to: "Rest In Peace and Rise In Eter­nal Glo­ry".

Sel­by Browne, pres­i­dent of VF­FOTT.