Vincentian Mohan Telfer, a budding Football Coach in the Washington DC Stoddert Soccer League, in the USA, has had the accolade of Travel Coach of the Year bestowed on him, following a year of successes.{{more}}

Telfer, a former resident of Cane End, in the Marriaqua Valley, received his award last Wednesday at a ceremony.

Telfer told SEARCHLIGHT ahead of receiving the award that it stood as a motivator for him and the work he has put in over the years.

“It is an incentive. I am happy. I appreciate it for my knowledge of the game and makes me want to keep working harder,” Telfer said.

Among his recent accomplishments was the success of his Under-15 boys team, the Rockets, which has had three promotions in three seasons, including winning the NCSL Division 4 this past Fall.

With eight years of coaching under his belt, Telfer, a former player of the St. Vincent Grammar School team in the early 1990’s, took up coaching full time in 2004.

A holder of a United States Soccer League C licence, Telfer coaches children eight years old and older, and admits that he basically lives, dreams and eats Football.

He said that the Stoddert League is the biggest in the DC area, which has an enrollment of about 5,000 children, and he currently coaches four clubs and a school team.

“In all I train about 15 teams, but I am the coach of those five”, Telfer said.

“Before, I was teaching at the primary school … I said let me go into this thing (coaching) full time”, he outlined.

And making the transition for him was an easy one.

“I come from a teaching family, a teaching house; my father was a teacher, my mother is a teacher, and having had good teachers at Prep School and Grammar School, I know how to work with kids and how to motivate them,” Telfer said with some gratitude.

Also inspired by his former Grammar School Football Coach, Fitz Bramble, the Crick brothers, Alwyn “Porpey” Guy, and the Cane End Playing Field, Telfer sees the Football talent that exists in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as abundant.

In his comparison, Telfer opined, “the kids back home are technically better, but up here, the kids are better tactically, because they are coached regularly and have several tournaments, which build them up mentally and they come with heart and soul and that desire to win”.

A person who has not lost touch with the Football happenings in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, he feels that even at the senior level, “Our problems are more tactical and psychological”.

Telfer was one of three coaches to represent the club in an exchange programme last year to Ethiopia, where he taught coaches in Addis Ababa about working with youth players.

A trip which he said was a life changing experience, as he got to appreciate some of the privileges that children here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines possess.

Telfer’s next step in his coaching continuum is his B licence, which he hopes to pursue in Summer months of the new year.

In the intermediate, Telfer wants to form linkages with young players, by assisting them with gear, among other things.

But down the road, he sees giving back to youths here, as it is his long term aspiration, to set up a Football Academy, in the land of his birth.