David takes over as FC Santa Rosa coach

FORMER NATIONAL footballer Shurland David has taken over as coach of local football club FC Santa Rosa, for the 2019 season.

The 44-year-old ex-Joe Public, San Juan Jabloteh, Caledonia AIA and Starworld Strikers defender replaces Derek King, who left Santa Rosa in January to join the technical staff of former TT coach Stephen Hart at Canadian Premier League squad Halifax Wanderers.

Santa Rosa captured the Super League crown in 2018, which was King’s lone year at the helm.

The TT Football Association (TTFA) will be holding a meeting today to continue discussions on a proposed merger of the TT Super League and the Pro League. However, Santa Rosa will begin their pre-season on Monday April 1.

At a media conference yesterday, staged at the Arima Town Hall, Super League president and owner of FC Santa Rosa, Keith Look Loy, said, “between late December and before Carnival, we thought about it long and hard. I spoke to the club’s board. They entrusted the coach’s search to me, and I talked to different people.

“I made a proposal to the (club’s) board to bring Shurland in, for different reasons, because of his playing and coaching history but also Shurland, like myself and Derek, is a no-nonsense man.”

Look Loy continued, “He’s a coach who wants to win. In FC Santa Rosa, we would like to think that we have a winning culture and we need somebody to maintain that. As you all know, there is the talks and moves of (forming) a new league, combining Pro League and Super League. We intend to be the champions of whichever league that we’ll be playing in this year.”

According to David, “The culture of the team is marvellous. We want to maintain the winning attitude. I want to improve what has been done, to make it better. We can’t sit on our laurels and say ‘we win the league, we could do it again’.”

The strongly-built David, who coached at Caledonia AIA, Maloney FC, North East Stars and WASA FC, said, “Every year you have to get better. If you stand still, people will go (past) you.”

He mentioned, “We have eyes on certain people that we will like to bring in. There are areas that we have to improve, to strengthen in numbers.”

Look Loy pointed out that the club will be looking at investing in a few of their youth players. There is also a possibility of a South American influence, as a pair of Venezuelan players are on trials at FC Santa Rosa.

“My philosophy as a coach and president of the club is every season, we have to freshen the squad,” said Look Loy. “New blood, new competition for places every season.”

King was joined by FC Santa Rosa midfielders Akeem Garcia and Andre Rampersad at Halifax.

“The fact that we sent two players to Canada, this year we’re looking to bring in new, younger players, from within and outside the club who fall in the age range of 17 to 21, with an eye of producing players who can go abroad,” said Look Loy. “We have about four 17-year-olds coming in from the club ranks.

“We have about two or three from outside, within that age group and we are giving trials to two Venezuelan players. There are lots of Venezuelans living in Arima and that is an area that we cannot ignore. They have experience playing in the league system in Venezuela.”

David has been hired on a one-year deal, and Look Loy said, “Santa Rosa is not a professional club and therefore we cannot offer a coach two or three-year contracts. Recognising our financial limitations, but having our ambitions, we have a contract for one year with an option of renewing it for next year. We’ll see how it goes.

“The minimum requirement is that, at the end of the day, Santa Rosa must have already won the title or have the possibility of winning the title.”