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“We have a good thing going, togetherness make it so, So while the mauvais langue is flowing, we want our people to know, We play this game for both you and me, good and I but great are we, We have a good thing going with football in T&T...”

It’s November and Trinidad and Tobago is on the road again. The path this time is leading to Canadian 2015 for the Warriors in Randy Waldrum’s charge who are now one game and one win away from becoming the country’s first-ever representatives to play at a Women’s World Cup.

Here we go again, the voice in my head is singing.

Twenty-five years ago this month, the “Strike Squad” had a very good thing going on the road to Italy until Paul Caligiuri ended the journey. But that was some trip while it lasted.

Having got into the final round of qualifying, the last phase of the campaign began in Torrance, California against the Americans in Murdock Stadium. It was a May afternoon, a Saturday. I am in front my TV in St James.

Things are not looking too good for Clayton Morris and his men. Two minutes to go, and they are still trailing to Steve Trittschuh’s volley early in the second half. “Spiderman” Earl Carter has no chance with it.

But then, Brian Williams picks up the ball on the right side, just inside his half, flicks it over his head and turns, leaving out his American challenger, travels into the American half and chips in-field towards Hutson Charles.

Rather than collecting, “Baba” dummies and continues his run towards goal, the ball floating on to Marlon Morris. What does he do? Not take it on the chest and look for the pass, but dives forward and directs a flick header into Charles’ path. Clear through on goal, “Baba” steers a left footer past David Vanole in the USA goal. All square.

Creative, pacy and clinical, that goal set the tone for what was to follow in 1989. For a generation that had not known the Cha Cha Cha era of Malvern, the “Government” sides of Maple and the stars of St Benedict’s of the 1960s or were too young to identify with the side that was “robbed” of a place in the 1974 World Cup during the qualifying series in Haiti, this campaign presented T&T football like they had never seen it.

The 1970s had seen the game go into the doldrums. But this side led by Morris, coached by Everald “Gally” Cummings and conducted by Russell Latapy at his best brought freshness to the football.

It dragged all the closet followers back out, created new fans, and just gave people hope--mainly that they could actually see a T&T side play on the sport’s biggest stage.

That qualifying series threw up many memories that have lasted. The artistry of that goal in the US was an iPhone moment for sure. But so was the Kerry Jamerson thunderbolt that won the penultimate game against Guatemala at the then National Stadium.

With the game level at 1-1 in the second half, Latapy lays the ball back to Jamerson outside the 18-yard box and he drives into the bottom left-hand corner.

The Stadium was shaken to its foundations when the ball hit the back of that net. Relief and excitement was shooting around the place. It even possessed a soldier, the man leaving his post to take a prance on the field. Remember that?

After that game, all that was needed was a draw. Just a draw, at home against the Americans on “Red Day.” Just a draw...

I don’t have to tell you the rest of that story. But it would take another 16 years before Latapy and Dwight Yorke could complete their journey to a World Cup, this time with the Soca Warriors. Dennis Lawrence finally supplied the missing goal.

But that Warriors team is not the side I identify with. The end of that 1989 campaign made me a football cynic. That November 19 day when my life and the lives of the thousands were put at risk so that someone could squeeze every cent out of the occasion, something was lost for me as far as local football was concerned. It was like a love affair gone sour. But I have never lost affection for the football of the Strike Squad.

However, the story of the female Warriors has piqued my interest. They remind me of Gally’s side in that they have set a standard for those who come after to follow, regardless of the final outcome against Ecuador on December 2. And like the Strike Squad, they have captured people’s attention because of their unity.

The strength of character of those young women really must be admired.

Taken for granted, ignored largely over the years by the public and their administration, and kept together sometimes through the individual efforts of coaches like Marlon Charles, they have got this far largely on their own steam.

I can only conclude that it is the largeness of their ambition, the love of the game, sheer guts and the devotion of coaches like Charles and Jamaal Shabbazz and the standards that Norwegian Even Pellerud tried to establish that have got them to this point. Even West Indies cricketers could learn about sacrificing to succeed from these Warriors.

As the late Lancelot Layne voiced in the opening words at the top of this page: “Good am I but great are WE.”

So keep your good thing going Women Warriors.