CALLS FOR a return of the Jackie Bell knockout football competition, the premier and once-coveted Kingston and St Andrew Football Association (KSAFA) tournament, were echoed all around the annual Bell/Ziadie football festival on Heroes Day at Winchester Park.
To add to calls for the return of the knockout competition, stakeholders are now advocating for the reinstatement to also include Dennis Ziadie’s name.
Clive ‘Busy’ Campbell, organiser of the annual Bell/Ziadie football festival for more than 40 years, is the man leading the charge, and he just wants the two football icons to be recognised by the association they served the most, KSAFA.
“What I am looking forward to, and I have approached the KSAFA president (Mark Bennett), to say, let us go out and seek people, corporate people, to come on board, because we must have a Bell/Ziadie knockout.
“It would give me a little ease to say, ‘yes, I can relax and know at least they are also being remembered by KSAFA’,” he said, while adding that is also important to add Ziadie’s name to the trophy.
“I really wish they could have it as the Bell/Ziadie knockout. They both died tragically, they both were national players and coaches, and they should be remembered in that sense together.”
Coach Andrew Price, who won the trophy with Boys’ Town, said the financial resources needed to restart the tournament, which was cancelled in 2019 after 32 years, are just not available.
However, he noted that the competition holds a special place in urban area football, and said an effort should be made to reestablish the tournament.
“Yes. It’s definitely a good idea (to restart tournament). When you look at the fact that the Jackie Bell knockout was the premier knockout competition in KSAFA. It would be good to have it restarted.
“I know one of the reasons we haven’t been having it is because of resources. But if we can reach out to corporate Jamaica to take on the competition in a new format for these two icons of Jamaica football,” he said.
He also fully endorsed the idea of adding Ziadie’s name to the competition.
“These two gentlemen really gave me my lease on life in football. Dennis Zaidie and Jackie Bell. Dennis and Jackie were very close friends and they did a lot for football over the years, and their legacy lives on.
“There is no better way to compliment them than having a competition named in their honour. So I would definitely support that gesture.”
Former Reggae Boyz 1998 star Walter Boyd was also fully behind the idea of restarting the tournament and naming it in honour of both gentlemen.
Boyd noted that it’s important for the current generation of Jamaican players to connect with the greats of the past, and having a competition in Bell and Ziadie’s name would serve such a purpose.
“We have to find ways to keep up stuff like that (Jackie Bell KO), because for me, to know where you are going, you have to know where you come from, and the great players set it. And we have to do that for history.
“Everywhere else you go in the world, everybody has their greats. Argentina support Diego, and we don’t want to turn our backs on our great players,” he said.
“So it’s important for the younger ones coming up to know where football is coming from and the road that we travelled. In that way, they will learn to appreciate the game a bit more.”
President of KSAFA Mark Bennett, who was in attendance supporting the event, declined to comment.