WHEN LEGENDS BATTLE

MONTEGONIANS ARE torn between two proverbial sons of the soil as last year’s beaten finalists Mount Pleasant Football Academy and Montego Bay United face each other in the semi-final of the Jamaica Premier League (JPL) this evening.

Supporting Montego Bay United’s efforts should be a given when their opponents are based in St Ann, the city’s north coast tourist rivals. However, the nuts and bolts of it aren’t so clear-cut.

Mount Pleasant is coached by Theodore ‘Tappa’ Whitmore, a legend of the community.

Whitmore, one of the faces of Jamaica’s 1998 World Cup campaign, made famous for scoring two goals in a 2-1 win against Japan in France, was already a hero of Seba United, the name originally donned by Montego Bay United, and was famously a player-manager in the early 2000s.

Whitmore’s opposite number, Paul ‘Tegat’ Davis, apart from being Montego Bay’s coach, was a player with Seba as well, and a national player who held the record for most goals in a Jamaican jersey for a long time.

Tegat is undoubtedly one of the faces most significantly associated with Montego Bay, and so the town is split about where its loyalties should lie.

The charges of the two legends will take to the field this evening at 5, at Sabina Park in the second leg of a tie that Mount Pleasant are only just edging with a 1-0 victory at the Catherine Hall Sports Complex in Montego Bay on Thursday.

1-1 DRAW

Cavalier and Arnett play in the second semi-final at 8 p.m. with even less separating the teams. Their first leg ended in a 1-1 draw.

Going back to the Montego Bay-born coaches, there are even more similarities when you dig into their histories.

Both went to St James High School, for instance, and while both have coached Montego Bay United, both have also coached at Mount Pleasant.

Davis would move from St James to Clarendon College where he enjoyed a stellar schoolboy football career, before joining Arnett Gardens in 1982. He moved to Seba in 1986 but would quickly move on, spending four years in Israel playing for Maccabi Netanya FC and Beitar Jerusalem FC from 1987-1990.

In 1991, Davis was awarded the top goalscorer and won the most valuable player award at the Shell Caribbean Cup. He won 61 caps for Jamaica at the senior level, and scored 18 goals.

While Davis was a goalscoring machine, Whitmore was a silky smooth, skillful, creative player.

He began his club career at Montego Bay Boys’ Club before moving to Violet Kickers, and eventually Seba.

In the year Whitmore scored two famous goals at the World Cup, he was also named Caribbean Footballer of the Year.

Overseas, he played for Hull City AFC and Tranmere Rovers Football Club in the English Football League in England. In 2003, he went to Livingston FC in the Scottish Football League.

Whitmore earned 120 caps and scored 24 goals for the national team.

Today, Tappa’s Mount Pleasant and Tegat’s Montego Bay face each other for the fifth time this season, with the former winning three times. The other result was a draw.

A proud Montegonian, former teammate and goalkeeper, Warren Barrett, said it is difficult to separate the teams.

“It is always an interesting matchup when friends, former teammates, and now coaches meet. One will want to outfox the other. I have worked with both teams in the past, so, to me, it doesn’t matter who wins. I am neutral. I think it will be an interesting game, and hope it will be far more exciting than on Thursday,” Barrett said.

He added, “I am proud of both of them. The two coaches have done very well over a number of years.

Meanwhile, former coach of both icons, Steve Bucknor, said it was excellent for the Second City to be represented by two coaches in the final four of the country’s top league.

ABILITY TO DEVELOP PLAYERS

Bucknor believes Tegat’s pedigree as a coach comes from his ability to develop players.

“Tegat has developed less accomplished players and taken teams from the lower divisions to the national league,” he said, suggesting that the former ace goalscorer has an edge over his less experienced former teammate.

“I coached him since he was age 14,” said Bucknor, who spoke of Tegat’s tremendous will to succeed and how he transformed from a fringe player to being irreplaceable.

Tappa, Bucknor explained was closer to the finished product when he came to Seba.

“Tappa, when he came to Seba, he was an adult and more accomplished. It was easy to work with him and to get things done. I suppose possibly, the greater part of his game then when I had him was that he was a goalscoring midfielder. His nickname was ‘goal a game’, scoring nine goals in eight games. Tappa and Tegat combined very well while playing together,” said Bucknor.

If Bucknor were to choose a winner, though, it would be Mount Pleasant, the former referee, coach, cricket umpire, and sports administrator, saying the St Ann team has more quality to pull from and has a more sound defensive structure.

There is mutual respect between the coaches for each other’s acumen from the sidelines. But both understand that their feelings about each other have to be left on the bus.

“It is not about coaching against Tappa. It doesn’t matter because it is a job, we are all doing it. I am happy for him and happy for his success. He is doing a good job with the Mount Pleasant team and I think he deserves all the credit he is getting,” said Davis.

“It is always a good feeling to go up against a teammate and someone you have a lot of respect for. At times you have to put that aside because now we are both on the other end looking for the win,” said Whitmore.