Henry's mood sways with Lion's form

Richard Bryan, Gleaner Writer

You can tell what is happening around Humble Lion Football Club by merely gauging the mood of the moment of Mike Henry, their manager, and more importantly, main financier.

If he is upset, then the club is not doing okay and no one's job appears safe. If he is in a jolly mood, as was the case yesterday when The Gleaner caught up with him during a full meeting of the squad members, coaching staff and other club officials, then all is fine and there is plenty of banter to go around.

"I am with the coach, what is it you want?" was his initial response, seemingly terse, on the phone.

Not so though. He is merely letting you know he is in charge and knows what's going on, and is in the mood to speak freely and kindly.

Even before the first question is popped, Mike is quick on the draw, but this time not firing any bullets as he did this time last year when the team struggled to find points, or at varying times during the past two rounds where his hasty retreat from their Effortville Community Centre home ground meant he was not all impressed, and not in the mood to joke around, or listen to excuses.

Henry upbeat

However, on the eve of the new year, the end of the second round and just ahead of the start of the crucial third round, Henry is upbeat about his team's improvements and readily directing the flow of the interview.

"What is it you're going to ask me?" - and he completes the question that sums up his mood - "that we're going to win the league this year?"

For a team ranked 10th and a mere point above the relegation tier, his response is almost an insult to the overall statistics that have not been favourable to his team.

The Clarendon club waited until their fifth match to get a point, their sixth to get their first win and after notching seven points in four games, they then went nine games without a win.

Their wretched second-round form meant dwindling home crowd support and signs the coaching staff of Lenworth Hyde Sr, Max Straw and Linval Wilson, were feeling the pressure.

With fans - who overwhelmingly welcomed Hyde when he replaced Chris Bender - now beginning to fan the fires of criticism, the team quit drowning as the tide was broken with victories over St Georges Sports Club, Benfica and Village United. As a measure of how badly positioned they were, the nine points earned, the best by any team in the period, amazingly catapulted them just one place up the ladder, from 10th to 11th.

It is good enough though for Henry, not for the first time, to put his vote of confidence in his charges.

"I am very pleased with how the team has performed, winning four games in a row, and I have confidence in the way the coaching staff has been able to weather the period and that it will continue into the third round ," Henry said in his usual winding manner.

Significant in parish

The fourth win he speaks of did not come in the DPL, but was significant to their parish stocks, as for the first time they spanked higher-ranked Sporting Central Academy by the emphatic margin of 3-0 in the Clarendon Claro knockout final.

Henry is so motivated that he intimated that a pay hike looms for his players. He seems to have also added his stamp of approval to recent efforts by the coaching staff to cut the current senior roster and filter Under-21 players into the match squad of 18.

So far, the experiment has worked with two of these players, Phillip Peddie and Demar Lawrence, adding their names to the list of first-time Digicel Premier League scorers.

A good test of where Humble Lion are at will come on Sunday when they face visitors Arnett Gardens, a team also looking to finish on a high and lock away one of the places in the second end-of-round final.