Lennon High's coach says he holds no grudges

André Lowe, Senior Staff Reporter

It has been almost a week since Lennon High coach Merron Gordon was seen on national television being escorted off the field at Jarrett Park in Montego Bay by police personnel, clearly annoyed at the events that led to his team losing to Rusea's High in the ISSA/Pepsi/Digicel daCosta Cup.

The evenly contested match, which was played in front of a massive crowd in the Second City, went to extra time and was only seconds away from a penalty shoot-out before controversy struck.

Gordon, like almost everyone else inside the venue, had seen a handball offence committed by a Rusea's player in the lead-up to the goal, seconds before the final whistle.

It was a cruel blow for the Clarendon-based team, which had pulled themselves to the final hurdle after a steady few years of improvement.

However, the Glenmuir High school past student is beginning to put the incident behind him these days, but cannot help but feel the pain for his young charges who battled long and hard to get to that point, only to see it grabbed from them at the death.

"These are teenagers and it was the final year for a lot of the guys, this (winning the daCosta Cup) was our dream, this was their dream for years, so it hurts deeply," said Gordon. "If the game had gone to penalties and we had kicked away all of our penalties we would probably be at school celebrating after the game, but the way that the game was taken away from us was cruel, I really cannot find words to describe the feeling."

The 27-year-old Gordon, who has also led the Lennon female team to success in recent times, is, however, confident that the school will once again rise to be one of the best in the country.

"Lennon is the first school that I have coached, and since I have been there I have changed a number of lives and I will continue to do that. I am only 27 years old and this situation won't change my career or my determination. I will continue to do what I do best and one day Lennon will win the daCosta Cup as long as I am alive and coaching here," he asserted.

Gordon remains a little bitter about the whole situation, but underlined that he had no issues with the referee or his assistants, who he believes had a good game up until the point of the contentious goal.

"I was one of the persons furthest away from the incident and I immediately saw that the player had handled the ball," Gordon reasoned. "The referee wasn't all that far away and the assistant referee was in line with the play so I really don't know how they didn't see the incident.

"To be honest, I don't know if the situation got to the referee at that point because he actually had a good game up to that point. I'm not going to take that away from him," Gordon added.