EXCLUSIVE: Linstead school boots football manager as tension rises

EXCLUSIVE: Linstead school boots football manager as tension rises

October 17, 2019 0 By Horace Mills

Charlemont High School, located in St Catherine, has parted company with the Manager of its football team, Yogi Hinds.

Hinds told The Beacon that the school’s principal, Garth Gayle, during a meeting yesterday morning, October 16, informed him about the decision.

Hinds thinks he is being used as a scapegoat, and is being blamed for introducing a questionable student footballer to the school.

That footballer recently presented a forged academic document to Charlemont in order to enroll in the institution’s sixth form programme, and to become a member of the school’s football team.

He was ineligible when he represented Charlemont in the ongoing ISSA/WATA daCosta Cup Football Competition.

The school eventually lost four crucial points and crashed out of the competition after the issue of the forged document was reported to the competition’s management – ISSA (Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association).

Hinds stated that, although he was the one who introduced the player to the school, the onus was on the institution to verify the player’s academic documents.

He noted that he was not employed to the school; he was volunteering because his wife is a past student of Charlemont High and he operates a business in Linstead and wanted to give back to the community.

Hinds added: “There are some people in the school that the principal needs to protect because of certain unnatural relations; they are the persons who should be doing the proper vetting and registration of documents. I don’t work at the school; I only come and manage the effort of the students in the football programme.”

Hinds further claimed that the principal is absent from the school too often, and his leadership leaves much to be desired.

He explained that the meeting yesterday, for example, was the first he had with the principal since the controversy regarding the forged academic document emerged over a week ago.

Hinds, pictured on the left above, said:

The principal and I attended the disciplinary hearing [regarding the ineligible footballer] at ISSA and sat before the committee; we had no meeting prior to that and no meeting after…

The principal could never have gone to that ISSA committee and have any argument to present to the committee because he had absolutely no knowledge of what transpired. He was not there [at the school]; he did not conduct any meeting, any query with me.

Hinds, in the meantime, opined that the principal is not comfortable with him maintaining a relationship with the school’s past students’ association. That’s because the principal and the association have been at loggerheads.

Hinds claimed:

For quite a while, the principal has been having difficulty with the past students’ group. He warned me not to have any relation with these past students. I am not a past student; my wife is.

The past students would, from time to time, use my premises for pay to conduct their meetings and stuff, and the principal warned me not to have them at my place. I am a businessman; I am not paid monthly like how the principal is paid; I have to have customers. I don’t think the principal is effectively managing the school, moreover wants to attempt to manage my business. This is ridiculous.

Hinds thinks the principal should be removed in order for Charlemont High to progress.

He noted that he is a ‘respected’ football manager, who previously managed Clarendon College, and Dinthill Technical High School.

“I have always brought success with me, and this is an obvious fact,” Hinds further said.

Since he because Manager of Charlemont’s football team in 2018, the squad won the prestigious Ben Francis Cup, as well as the STETHS Cup. The school does not have a history of winning football competitions.

When contacted last evening, the principal declined to comment on the latest developments.

“I wish not to have any conversation with you on anything to do with the school manager,” he told The Beacon.

The principal, last week, denied being an absentee leader, adding that the school has reaped successes under his leadership.

By Horace Mills, Journalist; B.A. degree in Media and Communications; CARIMAC, University of the West Indies


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