THE EDITOR: Within recent times as I continue this life’s journey, I have realised along the way one encounters individuals who impact on you positively or negatively.
In the year 1962 the year we became an “Independent country,” not a nation, as far as I am concerned, I was fortunate through some twist of fate to be selected as the youngest member of our first “National” football team who participated in a “goodwill” series of matches against the then national football team of Suriname, to commemorate our so-called “Independence”. In that Surinamese team was a player by the name of August Wooter who as fate and destiny would have it, connected us as Caribbean brothers and established a bond of friendship and brotherhood for the past 51 years.
In the ensuing years after 1962 we both pursued our career paths, but as fate and destiny would have it we again reconnected in the year 1981 through Lincoln Phillips who invited former players and coaches from the Caribbean to assist him in developing his Soccer Development Programme in the USA.
For a period of over ten years I had the unique opportunity of working alongside August Wooter as a coach, friend, mentor and spiritual brother, and I am convinced August Wooter was the best football coach I know and I make no apologies for this belief.
August who was based in the USA primarily in the Tri-State areas of Washington, DC, Virginia and New Jersey was responsible for developing hundreds of young boys and girls as soccer players and good, productive human beings.
Regrettably, because of his trusting nature in humanity, he was exploited, used and abused by people in the USA, and even his own Footballing Caribbean brothers who were in positions to assist and elevate him disappointedly exploited him.
About three years ago when I visited Washington DC, August and I reconnected, and I realised that he was living a life of abject poverty. For over 20 years I had been pleading with him to leave the USA and return home to the Caribbean, where his knowledge and talents were needed, and hopefully would have been appreciated. He was always apprehensive to this suggestion. Eventually, he accepted my advice and decided to return to Trinidad on December 28, 2013.
I invited him to be my house guest, in transit to his homeland Suriname. He spent approximately three weeks as my guest during which period the only event of note was an Appreciation and Award function in his honour which was hosted by Mr Clyde Paul the Mayor of Point Fortin, who coincidentally was an ex-St Benedicts College student.
That St Benedicts College, which was founded by the late Dom Basil Matthews who brought August Wooter from Suriname to coach the students of his college and subsequently revolutionised the coaching methods and strategies in Trinidad and Tobago’s football, produced some of our most talented and famous footballers. Only two former players ever found the time to pay a courtesy call on their former coach during his three weeks stay in Trinidad.
This ungrateful act by his former students agonised Mr Wooter and he departed Trinidad for his homeland on January 17, 2013, a very disappointed man.
During the past year, he was the victim of a very serious vehicular accident which occurred during a visit to Guyana where he lost the use of both legs. His medical conditions deteriorated and he succumbed to his injuries on his return to Suriname and passed away on Saturday April 5, 2014 and was buried in his home village Moengo in Suriname on April 11, 2014.
Like the burial of Sir John Moore’s “Not a drum was heard” in Trinidad by the Government or the football fraternity for this humble giant of a man.
It is ironic that similarly the late Dom Basil Matthews suffered and died under almost the same conditions. Trinidad and Tobago, his homeland where he contributed to much in revolutionising education, sports and community development, was not aware that during his last days it was the clergy and staff of the Roman Catholic Church in Washington DC who took care of him. I know, because I had the opportunity to visit him, with August Wooter prior to his death.
Shame, shame, shame on you Trinidad and Tobago as Explainer had sung, “We should not treat our heroes so.”
RIP Dom Basil Matthews and August Wooter, you will be rewarded in the Sweet bye and bye.
THEODORE “TIM” LAMBKIN
Tortuga Village