Audley Boyd, Assistant Sport Editor
Bruce Bicknell
SPORTING SKILLS, sublime or otherwise, evoke a level of love and admiration for their performers that almost make them magically empowering. For many inner-city communities, sport, headlined by football, is scoring big through its influence.
This is highlighted through the proliferation of high-profile inner-city communities that dominate the Premier League - Arnett Gardens, Tivoli Gardens, Boys' Town and Waterhouse - where football, especially, has kicked in greater portions of light while cutting away the dark shadows of crime that mirror the plight of the underprivileged and their very existence. And, there is a positive connection between both.
For instance, the start of this football season marked the end of a near four-year war in Arnett Gardens, a period in which they took a plunge after winning back-to-back Premier League titles and finishing as runner-up the third year. Stadiums, too, were empty. The football team has been fitted into a largely peaceful transition and the stands have become full again, an effort aided by free admission for the remainder of season.
gangs at war
At Waterhouse, different gangs were also at war around the start of the season. As the violence ceased, the results of the football team improved and so, too, the volume of patrons swelling the stands for important home fixtures.
As close as they are, neighbouring Arnett Gardens never played at Boys' Town and Tivoli Gardens, and vice versa, for years, even though they never had to play at Boys' Town because their Trench Town 'homies' spent quite a while in the Major League. The same applied to Waterhouse and Tivoli Gardens, too, because of a split across the political divide. They now play each other on their respective home grounds.
"Sports is a tremendous vehicle and it leads to a lot of things," said Waterhouse Football Club chairman, Bruce Bicknell.
"We also want visitors to come into the communities from outside and feel safe to the point where they will start contributing to the community's development. You can learn so much from each other. There are bright, loving people in these communities," Bicknell said.
"Sport is huge and football is the largest. Basketball is a fast-growing sport," he said. "If we can build basketball courts with stands and lights and give them to the community and if it is run properly, they'll take a lot of pride in it and welcome visitors and bring about the positives. "There are a lot of positives that are not being promoted in the inner cities. But they definitely need support, otherwise children don't have a future," he said. "Careers can be opened by sport ... a number of footballers and basketballers are now benefiting through transfers and scholarships."
chances
Bicknell is also concerned about the people who don't play sports and want to build the inner cities to improve the chances of their residents.
"You can live in wealth and come out wrong and you can live in poverty and come out right. Many young men and women from these communities come out as over-achievers too and that's not always highlighted ... scholars, businessmen, musicians, sportsmen, it doesn't matter where you live, but what you set your mind on with a positive attitude towards life," said Bicknell.
an amazing little country
"Jamaica is such an amazing little country that if we don't have a money problem we have a leadership problem. We need the members of parliament to grab on to business people and take them into their communities and come up with ideas to make them successful. We're just a part of society as everybody is," challenged the managing director of Tank-Weld Metals, a major sponsor of the Waterhouse that also employs a large number of residents from the community.
"It's part of Tank-Weld's desire to be fair to the community from which we've benefitted," he reasoned. "We're just trying to give back a little. I'm Jamaican, I was born here and I love this country. Once you're Jamaican you must treat your fellow Jamaican like family.
"It's important that uptown Kingston go down there and show them that we're ordinary people like them. Just the physical aspect of going in and spending time and spending money in the right ways make it cleaner and help to improve the educational aspect. These are the little things that go a long way. You don't want stigma attached to it, you want prosperity."
He added: "If you're running a football club, you have to run it very disciplined, like a business. Even the players have to be professional off the field, they are the role models in the community.
"If a player is a gunman then the kids see this as something they'd want to do, too. You have kids who call themselves Kevin Lamey, Irvino English," said Bicknell pointing to the popularity and influence of two of the football team's top players.
Continuing on the sport's impact on the community, Bicknell added: "It's like their life. They paint their house the colours of the football team, their walls, the sidewalks. They are football fanatics, they are very passionate, it's their life."
social interaction
Further, he made reference to one of the team's newest sponsors - Kingston Beer - and the type of social interaction it provides. "The Kingston Beer sponsorship is a kind of sponsorship of how clubs and companies should invest in the inner city," Bicknell said. "They're not just giving the club money, they're giving a concession on their beer, they have after-match parties, so they are interacting with the community as well, and their staff are there assisting."
He added: "It's not like football alone is the answer, but it's a big thing. You want to get these communities thriving so that they don't have a chance to think about the gun. There are very difficult conditions there and young people sometimes don't complete schooling because of instability and violence.
"I also feel that there are not enough social outlets like football and a homework centre that we've just built in Waterhouse. As far as sports is concerned, we want the community to have an outlet, to have an evening at the mini stadium with the family
Children from Waterhouse and surrounding communities pose with some clowns at a Christmas treat put on by Waterhouse. About 1,800 kids were feted on the occassion
Waterhouse fans rally around their side at Drewsland.
