BrownNATIONAL technical director of football Carl Brown departed last week for England and a stint with the coaching staff of Bolton Wanderers.
Gleaner reporter NODLEY WRIGHT caught up with the man at the helm of Jamaican football before he left the island. In an in-depth interview Brown talked about his coming assignment and his task with the national team.
NW: Coach Brown, you will be attached to the coaching staff of Bolton Wanderers for a year after which you will return to be appointed technical director of the football programme, what does it mean to you?
CB: I believe that it is something that I have longed for. It is one of the things that I had hoped would have been introduced long ago. Where we allow our coaches to be exposed to what it is like in a professional entity and to spend some time there.
After one has gone through coaching seminars and the likes I believe that this could be the ultimate, to spend some time and to actually see the coach at work and actually watch the entire operation and this is what I am looking forward to - to see exactly what happens in the day-by-day running of a professional club.
NW: You mentioned that you have been on a number of coaching seminars, what has been the longest one that you have been on and where was it?
CB: I went to Mexico for three months in 1976.
NW: With this attachment, do you know exactly how long you will be with Bolton?
CB: Right now it looks like the entire year. As to whether or not I will spend 12 months at Bolton I do not know but that is where I will be stationed. This will also offer me the option of looking around and moving around. For instance, the person who has developed the technical programme for England, Les Reid, has offered to assist me in any way that I need.
This is a new development which came about when I went to Trinidad recently to attend the workshop that was there. He actually conducted the workshop and it was out of that this came about.
NW: The season ends in May, will you stay on after that?
CB: Again it depends on what I will be able to do. One of the options that is also open is for me to go to France to spend some time at their training centre.
If that is possible and it works out then I would just move on there. But the plan right now is to get back here in May at the start of the World Cup and to go back when the preseason training begins.
NW: How will you be facilitated in France?
CB: I am not certain right now. This is another option that has been opened by speaking with Les Reid and it is something that I am hoping that when I get to England he will be able to do for me. There has been a whole lot of studies of the French system and what they have done over the past 12 years. They have done a comprehensive study on that and Reid himself went there.
NW: What do you hope to achieve from your stint with Bolton?
CB: I would want to look at what it is like. What the life of a professional is like and to get a first-hand action of seeing it work day by day. This is the foremost thing in my mind.
I would also want to see the behaviour of the professional player in that setting because you have been hearing that all your life but have not really spent anytime in that setting to see how they operate on a daily basis. In my other job there was a routine which I followed. This is something that I would want to know. What does the professional actually do on his regular day-to-day activities and what he does on the match day in preparation for it.
NW: Have they outlined your role and functions yet?
CB: I believe this will be made clear when I get there.
NW: As far as your other job at the Port Authority is concerned, have you given that up?
CB: I might have to do that but I have not done it yet. I think I will eventually have to do that. Presently, I am on vacation leave for six weeks but at the end of the day I believe I will have to give it up.
NW: Do you see this as giving up certainty for uncertainty seeing that you have been in this job for more than 20 years, taking on a job such as this one?
CB: I am not sure I would want to look at it as an uncertainty. If it was uncertain then I would not get into it. I am pretty satisfied now that the decision that I have made is one that I will have to live with for the rest of my life and that will impact on my family too so it is really not something that I am just getting into blindly on the whole subject of not being certain.
NW: So you have been given assurances that when you get back here at the end of the year you will be put it charge?
CB: Yes, I will be the technical director.
NW: For how long?
CB: For four years. The actual contract has been worked out yet. We have not gone into details but I have been assured that when I get back here I will be in that position.
NW: You are a family man. Will the family accompany you to England?
CB: No. Not at this time. What happens is that my son is preparing for A Levels in May and so because of that he is not able to move at this time. After May though the possibility exists because there are options in what we have done either for them to come or for them to come and visit me.
Continues tomorrow
