Angry Lion
MAY PEN, Clarendon —The Clarendon derby hardly needs a side-bar to excite local fans, but Lenny Hyde returning to Effortville on the opposing bench, for the first time since parting ways with Humble Lion, was always going to offer an intriguing subplot.
For Humble Lion and Sporting Central Academy, getting three points was the primary focus as they seek to add purpose to their ailing Red Stripe Premier League season with a positive start to the third round. But, the Lenny Hyde factor was just bound to figure in the story.
The end of his two-year coaching stint at Humble Lion was marked by a fallout with sections of the community, among other things, which led to a joint resignation from Hyde and his long-time assistant Max Straw. The taunts that greeted him on Sunday even were therefore no surprise — factions of the community are clearly still angry and this was their grand opportunity to vent.
“Guh weh Lenny; yuh and Max Straw a hustler,” was just one of the few media-friendly jabs that were thrown at Hyde. “Lenny, after yu neva used to tan up when yuh a coach Lion,” another supporter said. And even the young ones got in on the act: “Lenny, yuh side a lose.”
There was, however, one particular fellow who came to Hyde’s defence. “Unuh can’t diss Lenny,” he said, before adding. “A tru unuh nah get nuh more free food mek unuh a diss di man.”
Hyde by no means seemed fazed by the taunts, though. He moved with relative ease in his technical area — at times even offering a smile to the comical comments of the aforementioned fellow who strongly declared his loyalty to the former Humble Lion coach.
In some ways, Hyde’s decision to take the vacant coaching position at Sporting — Clarendon’s other Premier League team — represents a defeat for the Humble Lion faithful. They wanted to get rid of him, but they never in a million years expected him to him to join their arch-rivals (a club that’s in a better league position and considered by many to be pregnant with untapped potential, giving their riches in technically gifted young players) at least so soon after leaving Effortville.
Adored in these parts as a former schoolboy star with Clarendon College, Hyde might equally be misunderstood as a coach, especially at Effortville where his management skills were unpopular among several players and his seemingly reserved personality interpreted as cockiness by members of the community. Talks of possible interference in team selection by management were also gaining momentum.
A resignation letter, with immediate effect, was
the response.
Joining Sporting — club under ‘new management’ — not only presented Hyde with the chance to continue his football ‘bromance’ with the parish where he enjoyed much success with Winston Chung-Fah’s all-conquering Clarendon College daCosta Cup team in the 1970s, but also gave him an opportunity to make a fresh start after Humble Lion.
Four points — one win and a draw — in four games hardly sounds like a good start to life at Clarendon Park, but Straw, who gave post-match interviews on Sunday, said they have already identified signs of progress.
Sporting are now unbeaten in their last two games — after losing their first two under Hyde — which, depending on how one sees it, could add
some amount of credibility to Straw’s argument.
“The two-week break that we got gave us some time to work on our shape, and the players really showed some fight to get back a goal today (Sunday), so we are encouraged by what we have seen,” Straw said.
The game in itself wasn’t a bad encounter. While both sides practically cancelled out each other in midfield, there were a few goalscoring opportunities to satisfy the fans.
A Wolry Wolfe penalty — rifled into the roof of the net — broke the deadlock on 30 minutes, but just when it looked like Hyde was about to leave his old stomping ground empty handed, Francois Swaby turned up with a wonderful overhead strike in minute 84 to earn Sporting a deserved point, enabling his coach to leave the venue with his pride intact.