T&T capture Guinness skills challenge

Not only did Trinidad and Tobago capture this year’s Guinness Street Football Challenge held here in St Vincent and the Grenadines last weekend,{{more}} but Trinidadians also took the first and second positions in the football juggling competition.

After bouts of round robin competition, it was down to Trinidadians Kerron Ford and Mark Taylor, who battled for US$1,000 in the skills challenge.

The Trinidadian ballers dispatched jugglers from Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Guyana and Grenada in the preliminary rounds, with their deft ball movement on their hands, fingers, feet, head, shoulders and back.

Given 30 seconds at a time to show what they were made of, the duo wowed the audience at the Arnos Vale Sports Complex, and made judging easy for the international adjudicators Ruud Gullit, Robbie Earle and Claude Bolton.

Ford and Taylor recorded a tie at the end of the final set, and were sent back to a play-off round, where it was up to Gullit to seal the fate of one player, when the other two judges kept the score deadlocked.

When Gullit raised his hand, it was Taylor who left these shores US $1,000 richer.

Taylor qualified for the skills challenge by submitting a video of his techniques to the competition’s Youtube site.

Taylor’s victory preceded that of the Trinidad and Tobago street football team, known as “The Hills Have Eyes,” beating Dominica two nil on penalty kicks, after a fulltime and extra time score of 1-1.

Apart from the US$4,000 they collected for winning the tournament, Trinidad and Tobago will go on to Jamaica, where they will participate in the Futsal Coaching Course.

The other teams that participated in the competition were last year’s winning nation St Vincent and the Grenadines, last year’s host nation Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Kitts and Nevis.(JJ)