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With 80 per cent of the players from last season’s ISSA daCosta Cup football squad back in school Munro College are confident that they will have a good 2025 season.
Second year coach Kemar Ricketts told The Gleaner that they leaned a lot from last year and will make the adjustments.
“The aim is to do better every year. We would have learned from the first year so we can make the adjustments in the second year and maximize for the third year,” said Ricketts, who has Cavalier Football Club’s head coach Rudolph Speid as his technical director.
Last season, Munro started strongly and advanced as winners of their zones in both the first and second rounds.
They advance to the quarterfinals of the daCosta Cup but their title run came to a heartbreaking end. In the quarterfinals they had a 3-1 win over Central High but a 3-0 loss to Garvey Maceo High proved just too much to overcome.
It’s now 61 years without a daCosta Cup title and Ricketts said the mental state is influenced by that.
“The ambition is to break this drought and win a trophy for Munro. It is always going to be a part of our mental space, it doesn’t just go away,” said Ricketts.
The St Elizabeth-based school is the first to win both the daCosta Cup since its inception in 1950 and the Olivier Shield. They have won seven daCosta Cup titles and the most Olivier Shield titles (19) in rural Jamaica.
The 168-year-old school, known as Potsdam School before it was renamed during World War, won its last daCosta Cup title in 1964 when they defeated Titchfield High 4-1 in the final.
According to Ricketts, Munro’s peseason has been moving steadily.
“Every season writes its own story and I think this preseason is one of them. We are getting the job done and it is great.”
Though the expectations is to win some silverware, Ricketts said the plan is to take it by stages.
“We are only looking at the first round and to advance from that round. We won’t get ahead of ourselves,” Ricketts told The Gleaner.
Over the years, Munro have produced outstanding sportsmen such as the late Lindy Delapenha, the first Jamaican to play professional football in England; Nelson Christian Stokes, who played on the 1981 daCosta Cup team and was a member of world-renowned Jamaican Bobsleigh Team; Dr Dean Weatherly, a highly rated coach with the most success at Cornwall College, winning 10 of their 12 titles; Eddison “Eddie” Hinds; Winston George Hutchinson, who captained the daCosta Cup team to several victories; and Ken Walton, who won three daCosta Cup titles.
Munro will be campaigning in Zone E in the first round alongside B.B Coke High, St Elizabeth Technical High, Maggotty High, Newell High, and Lacovia High.
The ISSA schoolboy football season will officially begin on Saturday, September 6.
English (US) ·