Lennon High School's Simone Honeyghan challenges Excelsior High School's Antoinette Ingram for the ball during the final of the ISSA schoolgirls football competition, at Spanish Town Prison Oval on Friday. Lennon won 3-0. - Peta-Gaye Clachar/Staff Photographer

We have heard the stories of rags to riches so many times but with each individual there is always something different.

Nineteen-year-old national under-20 football player, Simone Honeyghan, has an interesting story.

The fourth of eight children for her mother and the second to last for her father, she is motivated to chart a positive path.

"My father works in Kingston as a shrimp vendor and my mother is a domestic worker. My family is not rich," Honeyghan said. "So far no one has achieved much so I am trying hard to make my mother and father live better."

The Lennon High School star forward started playing football at Race Course Primary School in Clarendon. She said her former coach saw her performance and scouted her, following which she began attending Lennon High.

"My skills as a footballer have improved since then," Honeyghan said.

Phenomenal perfor-mance

In second form, she began under the tutelage of present coach, Merron Gordon.

"My main motivator is my coach and guardian," she said. "He helps me to get through all the time and is always pushing me to keep working at my game."

She attributes hard work and teamwork to her phenomenal performance throughout the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Asso-ciation (ISSA) girl's football competition.

"I have remained focused and have a lot of agility," she said.

In last year's competition she received the Most Valuable Player award after finishing with 48 goals.

This year she decided that she wanted to go for back-to back MVP and the leading goal scorer titles.

In this year's competition she has scored 45 goals, netting one in the 72nd minute in the final against Excelsior High last Friday at Spanish Town Prison Oval.

Honeyghan, who is in her final year at Lennon, is in the process of finalising preparations to attend an overseas University. Academics, she says, is not her strongest area but she still tries her best.

"I train everyday. During the holidays we engage in camps. At the end of the day we really don't get a break," she said.

Gordon said Honeyghan had been playing long before he met her but since becoming her coach for the last four years, he has seen improvements.

"When I started at Lennon she had not played for the national team before. In the first year that I was there she made the national under-20 team and has been progressing steadily since then," Gordon said.

Gordon concluded that Honeyghan is a hard worker and can be relied on to come through for the team at all times.

"She will be very successful," he said.