Paul-Andre Walker, Staff Reporter
Brown
AFTER SIX months of coaching in the United States, former national football technical director, coach and player, Carl Brown, is back in Jamaica with the specific task of rebuilding Boys' Town.
The board of directors at Boys' Town announced in a press conference that Brown would soon be taking up the post of chief executive officer (CEO) at the club, a position that encompasses more than just football.
"We need somebody on the ground to run the daily operations of the Boys' Town institution, and that not only includes sporting activities, it
also includes our basic school, our vocational area and our all-age school," said Boys' Town's technical director Andrew Price after the press conference held to appeal to corporate Jamaica for support.
"So we need somebody to be a director of all those operations and the board of management at Boys' Town has decided that person is Carl Brown," he added.
EMOTIONAL SPEECH
Brown gave an emotional speech and explained his reasons for coming back to Jamaica.
He had left the country under a shroud of speculation that the footballing legend had become disoriented with the sport in Jamaica and the politics surrounding it.
At that time, too, Brown had been ill, having picked up a bug in the United States while operating as technical director of Jamaica's football, when the Reggae Boyz played the United States in Ohio.
Speaking during a heartfelt appeal to Jamaicans to save Boys' Town, not just as a Premier League club but as an institution, Brown in his first interview with the media, explained why he came back to Jamaica.
"For six months I have been in the United States and for three or four of those months I was among some youngsters but it never ever gave me the energy that I got when I drove through Boys' Town some three or four Mondays ago," said Brown.
"All of us that step through that gate bring hope for those in the community. Winning the premier league is far from my mind. We will win the premier league sooner rather than later, but it isn't the important reason for appealing to corporate Jamaica for assistance," he said before going back to a time before Father Hugh Sherlock, the founder of Boys' Town, had died.
BIGGEST FEAR
"I expressed then that the biggest fear was the death of Father Sherlock because I thought that when he died then Boys' Town would die. That was 10 years ago. We have been trying, we have been fighting, we have been bending as far as we can to ensure that it doesn't die," he said.
Brown went on to appeal to other old boys of the Collie Smith Drive institution to rejoin the fold and give back to the club the way he hopes to during his tenure as CEO.
"A lot of old boys used the opportunity to move away. We don't go to Boys' Town anymore because a little boy is going to beg us. We begged Father Sherlock. Come back home. There are youngsters today that need the help that you got," he pleaded.
Brown stated categorically that the institution of Boys' Town is the very fragile thread that holds the community of Trench Town together, and that this must be allowed to flourish for the good of a community that has offered much to Jamaican society and culture, even outside the realms of football.
NOT ABOUT WINING
"It's not about winning the premier league," he reiterated. "It is about saving the lives of those in the community. We have lost too many to the gun, to the drugs. We have lost too many, we need to save them," he said.
"If it was about the premier league I would have no reason to be back in Jamaica. It's about saving lives. What the premier league has done is bring stability and peace to a community that is longing to watch the Boys' Town team play on a Sunday," he ended.
Boys' Town had its lights switched on earlier this week. They have been forced to play home games away from their home base because the facility does not fully satisfy premier league standards.
However, that is being rectified and they are looking to host their first real home match in January against Waterhouse.
