Roy Collins : Soccer
Jamaicas footballers, says Robbie Earle, have become the countrys biggest cult heroes since the bobsleigh team implausibly qualified for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.
Instead of careering down a mountain Jamaicas football team are just as implausibly attempting to climb one. Their goal: to become the first Caribbean side to plant their flag on footballs summit by reaching next years World Cup finals.
So far they have been placing their crampons successfully, beating Canada for the first time in 25 years to take second place in a six-country group from which three qualify. Last weekend they managed a 1-1 draw against the United States in Washington. Their remaining matches are against El Salvador and Mexico.
Jamaican sport used to be famous for three things: cricket, cricket and cricket. As a pastime football was way down below smoking joints and the two Bobs Bob Marley and bobsleigh but not any more. Earle (32), the Wimbledon midfield man, says: At the moment football is bigger than cricket or politics. This is something singularly Jamaican; there is a lot of poverty in the country and the people see this as a way of putting them on the map. You see 20-a-side games in the streets.
Earle was born 6 400km from Montego Bay, in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and was called into the England youth squad when Graham Taylor was national team manager. But with two Jamaican parents he is better qualified than those Englishmen who all but commissioned autopsies on ancestors to wear the green of Ireland.
Playing in the land of his fathers has been a bit of a culture shock. On the morning of a match, for instance, the lads like nothing better than to tuck into a good stew, which Earle, as a vegetarian, politely refuses. The stew arrives after prayers, said before breakfast and after training. On match days a local reverend delivers a sermon.
Jamaica are unbeaten in Kingston for three years and, given the conditions, this is not surprising. The pitch has more bare patches than Elton Johns scalp during his first round of hair transplants. The Jamaican FA planned to cover it until complaints from visiting teams highlighted that it could be an advantage for the hosts.
The uneven surface causes the ball to bounce all over the place, and complete visiting forward lines have been known to disappear down the pot-holes. Earle makes sure his ankles are double strapped before gingerly stepping on to the pitch.
The stadium officially holds 37 000, but, Earle says, There must have been 50 000 for our last match. People were sitting on the walls, standing on each others shoulders and lying down beside the touchlines.
Its like a carnival. The fans arrive three hours before the kick-off with their barbecues and drums and the sound is so much more high-pitched than in England. It takes some getting used to.
Jamaican authorities insist on 3pm kick- offs, when it is 38 degrees, again because of the torrent of complaints from visitors that it is unfair and possibly life- threatening. Earle, brought up on night games for Port Vale in mid-winter, struggles.
Earle says: Our coach says he can see the other teams wilting. You can see us English lads wilting, too. You can actually feel your eyes losing focus with the heat. That is why I have come on as a second-half substitute in all my five appearances.
Jamaicas coach is the Brazilian Rene Simoes, who was in charge of his countrys Under-21 team when Romario and Bebeto were beginning to make their mark. He encourages a form of total football, which can see the right-back turning up on the left-wing, and plenty of nutmegging and tricky flicks which send the crowd into raptures.
The standard of football, says Earle, is about that of Englands Third Division, though there are players with the skills to rise above it.
The best, he says, is Theodore Whitmore, a player who can turn a game in an instant but is a bit like Steve McManaman, not always finishing as well as he promises.
ENDS