- Wednesday 02, June-2004 by BARRY ALLEYNE

It’s almost summer, and that means the Liverpool Football Club of England are in Barbados again.

For the past six years, players, officials, coaches, former players and fans of one of Britain’s biggest and most successful clubs have been in Barbados, not only to give their young players an opportunity to improve, but also to play a part in the development of Barbados’ youth soccer programme.

This year’s visitors arrived last week, once again as hosts of the Barbados Children’s Trust, and their eight-day trip this time included four warm-up matches against some of the best Under-13 teams this country has to offer.

Geoffrey Moss, a director of the Barbados Children’s Trust, who also has children involved in the Liverpool/Barbados programme, believed its important for Liverpool to maintain their superb “friendship” with the Barbados football family. The Barbados Children’s Trust has provided full backing and funding for the programme.

“The fact that they’ve been coming here for the past six years just shows how much this means,” Moss told the MIDWEEKSPORTS at the FirstCaribbean Bank Sports Club playing field, where Liverpool’s Under-13 team were playing Wanderers in a practice match.

And it doesn’t end here. By tomorrow, five more coaches who are actually with Liverpool, or have been part of the Anfield culture over the past 20 years, will arrive in Barbados to conduct a number of coaching programmes with Barbados’ primary schools over the next week.

Chief executive officer of Liverpool, Rick Parry, here not only to assist in the programme, but also to watch his son play, believes Liverpool had proven its intention to help Barbados football.

“As far as development goes, I’ve seen a vast improvement,” he said while watching the match last weekend. “When Liverpool first came here, we realised there are some very talented young players around, but now we’ve seen a technical improvement. The players can’t just play well, but they read the game better, and are more competent when it comes to technical matters.”

Parry said Liverpool had made a similar impact in Asia, where football was at a fanatical stage, and British clubs were quite popular.

“But when you look at it, we came to Barbados before we went to Asia, so we feel a level of responsibility to keep coming here, to keep helping football in Barbados,” Parry said.

According to Moss, the Liverpool juniors look forward to the Barbados trip.

“We plan to keep coming, until we see the level rising. We’re grateful to be given the opportunity, as one of the biggest clubs in England to play a part in the development of Barbados’ football,” Moss said.

Compliments of the Nation News

Caribbean Football

Sporting islands

BARBADOS