Athol Franklyn. - CONTRIBUTED
AT 26 YEARS of age, footballer Athol Franklyn would hardly be seen as a veteran, but that is exactly how he sees himself.
He considers himself a veteran in the sport who has a lot to impart especially to younger players. Having made his debut in daCosta Cup football for Ocho Rios High as a 13-year-old, great things were expected of him.
His star continued to shine when he represented Jamaica at the Under-20 level in 1999 and, like many observers, he expected to progress to the national team soon after and to play professionally overseas.
While four of his then teammates, Ricardo Fuller, Jermaine Johnson, Claude Davis and Damion Stewart, have fulfilled their dream, Franklyn went off the boil.
With the direction taken by the current football administration and national coach Wendell Downswell's focus on youth and local-based talent, Franklyn believes that the place is there for him to take and the time is now for him to refocus.
The opportunity was taken to speak with Franklyn as he went through his paces with Trelawny's Village United in pre-season training.
Q: Athol, you started out with Village last season but after that it appeared as if you just disappeared. What happened with you?
AF: I was not 100 per cent focussed - mainly through personal affairs and I thought that it was best to sort them out without disrupting the club, the other players or taking my problem to training. That is what I did.
Q: Are they sorted out now?
AF: Most of them. The most important ones or the ones that caused the most distractions are gone now.
Q: Outside of those problems though Athol, you have said before that you have made some mistakes before that you do not want others to make, tell us about them?
AF: One has to know himself, how he thinks and what he is going to do. We have choices. It is either you are going to play football because football is a job, but maybe a lot of people in Jamaica do not see it like that. Football is my job but you have to be wise because there are other things such as women, party, idle friends and bad company and bad influences which will get you distracted. As a result of that you do not focus on your true talent of football. It is really difficult to stay focussed so to most of the youth I would say they should try and find God because that is the only way through a lot of things. Some times when you are popular you attract all kinds of people around you but you have to keep your head on your body. You also have to try not to adopt their ways. If any change is going on then they should change to be like you.
Q: It seems as if you had lost your appetite for the sport too.
AF: Football is a thing like this, it is the easiest thing to fall from the top and the hardest thing to get back there. Right now what I have to be doing is working at about 150 per cent to get back to where I was and I am not going to fall off so easily if I get back there because I have been through the sticky and the muddy. In saying this I do not mean any criminal activity - but it happens to the best of us.
Q: So you are back on the road now?
AF: My mind is 150 per cent there now.
Q: What are your plans for this season then?
AF: My dream right now is more than football. I really want to make my mother proud of me again and in doing that I want to play for Jamaica again. I told her ever since I was a little boy that I would play for Jamaica and she cried the first time I played for Jamaica at the Under-20 level. I really want to get back that feeling so I am really doing it for my mother (Marcia Luke) and myself too. I also have a little sister who has never really seen me play and I want to do it for her too. I wear the number 15 jersey because she was born on September 15. I want her to see who I really am because what she is seeing now is not really me but my shell.
Q: How did you get involved in football to begin with?
AF: When I lived in St Ann's Bay there was this team called Colour White, which my uncle Leonard Luke played for. He used to take me with him when he played for that team. He also worked with the telephone company and he would take me with him. I would carry his bag, clean his boots and wash his socks and that was a big thing for me because he was like my father figure. I practically worshipped him because he was a big 'baller in St Ann. At training too and would go behind the goals and return the balls to the football field. After my uncle migrated I had another father figure by the name of Junior Walker who played for Black Stars and he was my neighbour. Whenever Dr. Aston Marsh came to coach the team he would
wake me up until I started waking him up.
Q: What was football like for you in High School?
AF: In first form at Ocho Rios High I tried out for the Under-16 team, but I did not make it because they said I was too small. In second form I tried out for the daCosta Cup team. Luckily, Dr Marsh was assisting with the team so I was allowed to stay even though the other coach, Mr Rose, was saying I was too small. Things got better when Mr Rose went to the Miami Classics and I was invited on the dorm by the captain of the team and I gradually worked my way into the squad. That first year I played one game.
Q: How did things progress for you from there?
AF: The following year I scored the first goal for the team in the daCosta Cup competition and I gradually worked my way up and played for Jamaica at the Under-20 level. I went to the United States for a while and returned to play for Village United and this is where I am at now.
- Nodley Wright
