INCENSED MEMBERS of the St Jago High School community have demanded an apology from coach Trevor 'Jumpy' Harris for inflammatory comments regarding a possible 'St. Catherine conspiracy' to keep Kingston College from advancing to the second round of the Manning Cup.
The 'St. Catherine conspiracy', as alleged by Harris, is a supposed ploy in which an already eliminated St. Jago failed to show for their fixture against Eltham, helping their parish neighbours to a spot in the second round of the Manning Cup.
However, St. Jago's account of the affair, their failure to show up for a home fixture, was blamed on an islandwide closure of schools.
A statement from St. Jago principal, Keith Noel, pointed to the Friday in question being during a week when Prime Minister P.J. Patterson had declared all schools closed due to the effects of Hurricane Wilma.
Noel said St. Jago had communicated with the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) and Eltham had agreed for the game to be rescheduled.
However, when contacted by The Gleaner, ISSA competitions officer George Forbes stated he had not received any such notification of the rescheduling and the points had to go to Eltham.
KEEN RIVALRY
Noel insists the rivalry between St Jago and Eltham, having already lost to them in cricket, is a keen one and his team still wants to play the game.
"St. Jago has never not honoured a fixture," his letter stated. "The school prides itself on always doing its best. It cannot be recorded that we intentionally wanted to miss the fixture.
"We felt they (KC) would do what they had to do and await the outcome of the rest of the fixtures, not speculate as to who would conspire with whom," he further added.
However, Harris yesterday said he felt justified in making his comment due to alleged happenings at the end of the Kingston College-St. Jago encounter at Clovelly Park, which Kingston College won 4-1.
"We were told by a chorus of Jago players at the end of the game that the result did not matter, because they would intentionally lose the game to Eltham anyway," he remarked.
"Them not turning up for the fixture seemed to support that statement.
"This has nothing to do with us going through. We are not fighting to go through. We accept our faults. We started playing late and that's our fault but we do not want the type of things that we see happening in schoolboy football to keep happening.
"We want the game to continue to be played in a spirit of fair play." he said.
- K. M.
