 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers, a production of the Government Information Service. I'm your host for today, Jacques Hingson Compton, and with me is the Director of Spots in the Ministry of Youth Development and Spots, Mr Patrick Matra, who's actually no stranger to the program, he's been on before. But today we actually want to talk about the history of the sports sector and the Ministry of Sports in St. Lucia. So that's what we're going to spend the next 30 minutes talking about. Welcome, Mr Matra. Thank you very much. It's always a bit of a pleasure. And once I'm able to, to just speak to the public, to speak to you about sports, because it's my passion. Yes, of course it is. So first, before we get into the history, I just want you to, even though you've spoken about it before, let's speak a little bit about the role of the Department of Sports. Okay. As anything else, the Department of Sports, as I well imagine, is a government bureaucracy, which is, as a responsibility to channel sports in a particular direction. And when I say channel sports, I'm not speaking of you forcing your way into it, but to allow or more or less facilitate the development of sport or the sporting sector. That would necessarily mean national associations, it would necessarily mean sponsors, it would necessarily mean the athletes, but persons within the sporting fraternity to give it a level of direction, because as you would expect, if you don't have a plan or set direction, it would be total chaos. Okay, so let's now dive into the history. What year was the Ministry of Sports first created and why? Well, it's interesting because as we grew as a population, it was necessary for us to look at the various sectors and governments changed from time, so it was a deliberate policy of the government. And so about 1980, they're about, what happened before within the ministries, there was no sports ministry, there was no sports department. What you had was a department of community development. And within the department of community development, it was felt at the time and the minister of sports at the time was Honorable, the late John Odlam. And it was his vision because he had a lot of ties with Cuba and he saw what they would do in terms of sports and he felt it was necessary to do something more in terms of the development of sports. And so around that time, 1980, they created in the ministry a sports unit, I want to call it a unit, and that unit was staffed by one individual. Mr. Andrew McGlure, who was a community development officer, senior community development officer at the time, became the senior community development officer with the responsibility for sports. And so Mr. McGuire now was the one who was charged with the responsibility of developing the whole issue of sports. And I think it started by putting together youth and sports officers. And so a number of youth and sports officers were hired. You had, for instance, if my memory serves me well, the Honorable Fortuna Belrose was a youth and sports officer. She was a youth and sports officer. You had Mr. Victor Reed, youth and sports officer who is now General Secretary of the Football Association. And also Winston Lubin out of Viewfort, he was another one of the officers. So those persons who started off as youth and sports officers within the ministry later on, you had the likes of the Leonard Montuth Spider. He too was a youth and sports officer. You have persons like Anselma Cauldron. She was a youth and sports officer, Ligurus Maki, Claudia Noel, now Claudia Jabatis. All of those persons were part of the history of youth and sports. And so they came later on. But that very initial, the initial stage was youth and sports, those three youth and sports officers. And even then it was always difficult to try and cover the entire island. So at that point in time, the 1980-82 thereabout, that is why they came up with the concept of the youth and sports council. So the youth and sports council was a brainchild of the then department or unit of sports because they felt a good way to reach out to the number of clubs that were around the island was to group them in a particular way. And so what was developed was a concept of the youth and sports council and then officers would be responsible for groups of youth and sports council to make the work easier and to move on. So did you sort of divide the country into was it different constituencies or... We tried at the time, and as I spoke to Mr. McGowan later on, we tried to stay away from the issue of constituencies because we didn't want it to be politically anyway. And so one of the things that we did was to divide the country based on regions. And so you had the Sufra region. In some times they look like constituencies, but they are really not Israeli geographical areas. And so it's based on those geographical areas persons were able to work. And so you had the... When it was first formed, there were 17 youth and sports councils and later on, because Anster Canaries was won. And then later on, Anster was broken up because you had the Rousseau Valley. And so the Rousseau Valley youth and sports council came to be in. Then afterwards you had Miku. Miku was won also. And then you had the Miku, Deriso, breaking away from Miku and you had the Deriso youth and sports council. Now, even now, you have other things now because now you have... We have condoned the lines almost politically now, which I think... It may have its rational behind because I don't know if the thinking now is to look at local government and what's happening with local government. But now you have, for instance, the Grosly, North and Grosly South Youth and Sports Council. You have the Casteries East Youth and Sports Council. South Casteries has not broken up because South Casteries is both Casteries South and South Casteries South East. So we still have a large, large area. And I want to believe that the jury is still out on that because I am not sure that dividing it politically is the best thing. But again, like I said, the jury is still out on that. And I believe that what you can do is to organize a structure in such a way that other persons within the district could, for instance, South Casteries, have a first vice president responsible for South. A first vice president responsible for the South East. That would suffice rather than bring it up and make it look very political. And once you start to do that, of course you have a certain sector who just not come in at all. So after that, after the whole department and start to evolve, we start to evolve in terms of where we were going, what we were doing, and the programming started. And I think that in the initial stage, the ministry then was trying to get persons to understand the value of sports and how we could develop and for us to become part of the international fraternity. And so now this is exactly one of the things that we were doing, that the... I want to say that in terms of the history that if I were to look at how we developed, I would put it into phases. And I would say that after the initial stage, where at that point, about 1983, 84, there about, is when we start to see that first phase of sports development. Incidentally, it is about that time that the National Youth Council was formed in 1985. And that ministry was very instrumental in doing the whole development of youth and sports. And so, but we had to talk about sports. I have to mention youth unfortunately because that's part of that whole mix up too. But that is when we started to see things develop differently. And the plan was, at the time, get involved at the regional and international level. And I think that was the second phase of our own sporting development, where we started to reach out to the international community and to the regional community. That is when, for instance, around that time that Saint Lucia started to make overtures to be part of the Saint Lucia, the national and international community. That is where we saw a massive development in football, for instance, because before that you had the clubs playing, then, of course, the districts with their friendly rivalry. Then came the Mackerson Cup, which was rivalry again. And then, around that time, somewhere about the 1990s, early 90s, that's what was formed was a United Front Coalition, Lucia Football Union. So it was not the association, it was a union. So castries, a few teams from castries, not necessarily castries central, a few teams from castries, Vue Forte Souffre, they came and they put the union together. And later on, after the union, that is when the association became later on. So you would see, in the early parts of football, and you would see the football union. So it would be the castries football union. Then it became the Saint Lucia football union. And later on it developed into the Saint Lucia football association. So a lot of the instruments were like, the sports were like that. We're due for a very quick break. So stay with us. You're watching Issues and Answers. I'm here with Mr. Patrick Mathre, the director of sports in the ministry of youth development and sports. Please stay tuned, we'll be back in a moment. If you're in trouble, start in this session. Alright, no need for aggression. Mission Boys, Studio 758, Acid Creation, and the Royals and Lucia Police Force. From Kevin, you still give me a lot of stories. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I'm here with Mr. Patrick Mathre, the director of sports in the ministry of youth development and sports. And we're talking about the history of the sports sector, as well as the history of the ministry of all the departments of sports. So, before we went for the break, you were speaking about the football unions and such. Yes. And so, as I indicated, that was one of the associations that developed at that time. And because of the reach of football, we were able to do a lot more to reach out. Now, a lot of the associations developed in that similar manner, where you had the major areas, which was castries, rivalry, view fought, and they developed along the lines. Over the years, persons got involved in associations, and the ministry at the time forced them along the lines of becoming affiliated to international organizations. So now, as we speak now, we have 25 national sporting associations, and every one of them being affiliated to international bodies. It helps from the standpoint that you're able to monitor what is happening on the outside, but monitor what's happening on the inside. Because, I will tell you some years ago, the St. Louis Olympic Committee in showing that associations were in the rights in terms of what they were doing had asked that in order to continue as a member of the SLOC Incorporated that you should get a letter of good standing from your association, your international federation. And that's how it's referred to in terms of the Olympic fraternity federations. And so a lot of those federations would have gotten that. Some of them, of course, they fall by the wayside, they come up and they go. One of the more interesting ones that maybe we don't have time to speak about is actually martial arts. Martial arts is very interesting because martial arts actually there was established by legislation the Martial Arts Commission. And there was legislation on that in terms of the Martial Arts Commission and everybody was to filter out into the Martial Arts Commission. At the time Mr. Duve I remember his first name now. Is that former PS? Yes, he was heavily involved in that, he was the one pushing. And at the time it was a wonderful concept but it never developed in the way it was supposed to develop and I'll tell you why I believe that is the case. And I think also that is why a lot of our sports would have not developed to their full potential and that is really because it's a double edged sword in a sense is the issue of volunteerism. Persons come into this thing, they want to volunteer, they want to be part of it and so they willingly give up the time. But guess what, as we turn around on the other hand now, the time that they give up sometimes they're not appreciated but even then you need to go the extra mile and so as we develop in the terms of history of sports, you cannot really depend on volunteers. You need people who are full time in this thing you need people who have the time but more so you need people who that is their responsibility and once it is their responsibility that you expect them to do so. It's difficult to say to a volunteer that you're volunteering let's do it and the volunteers can say I just volunteer He just doesn't have the time. But if you're fully employed in your work then there's recourse. So you know if you're a worker employed in an institution, you don't do it then we know exactly what happens with you and I think that is what we have to look at seriously in terms of sports and the history and you would notice them that a number of the sporting organizations who have developed in central and gone one step ahead are really those who would have necessarily have an office, a structure and again I refer to football so you have an office and you may argue that well football have money people argue football have money but football has money because they grew football maybe 20, 40 years ago the popularity of football was not like that and so the FIFA now took a deliberate effort to grow the game and to announce afterwards since we have grown the game we're making a lot of money from TV rights they have their own station and their own studios then they're able to give back that can be done throughout the world with all the sports maybe they may never become popular as football but every single sport have the potential to grow to that extent and in some cases you have those sports throughout the world who have grown we don't play hockey in St. Lucia but hockey is massive American football is massive and lacrosse for instance is a massive sport throughout the world and I'm saying those sports although some of them like lacrosse for instance they professionalize the sport and this is where I want to go in terms of our history the St. Lucia Football Association when I became president did a deliberate program which we call the professionalization of football it was something offered by FIFA to all of the associations throughout the world the federations and so we took the opportunity you get training on how to run an organization on the whole history of financing in an office how to develop a program and a plan and we were out in our workshop for an entire week and I'm saying this is the next step for us in St. Lucia in terms of the history of sport we need to start to professionalize every single sport so persons could see exactly what it is and again we have reached a point in our history where we will recognize throughout the world and this is when we started to do well and persons started to speak to us in terms of oh St. Lucia is doing well that's the time in the 1980s we are the OECS we dominated the OECS football, we dominated volleyball we dominated table tennis we dominated netball St. Lucia was on top of the world that's all throughout the 1980s right up to the late 1980s into the early 90s we were kings of the Caribbean I remember it's around that time when St. Lucia drew a match and every time Jamaica had a football match they would show it in the boots because that little St. Lucia is coming for them it was really for us a time where we were developing and of course what happened to us the rest of the world caught on and they say oh whatever is happening St. Lucia is good so they were coming, they were studying us they were doing what it is and then now when they realized that we caught up with them now we went into that age of technology we could change for us a history of what we're doing and to move us to the next era of sports and so this is where I want to go now in terms of technology and sport and for us to move on as a nation how we now use that technology to move on to the other aspects of sports I even wonder if our diet had anything to do with why we were dominating sports throughout that time actually remember there was a story a while back who say in both and the Olympic Committee and how they were complaining about how his diet was possibly different from all the other athletes around the world and they were talking about perhaps banning some of the foods that he was eating from Jamaica but we're actually do for our second and final break so we'll just come back in a little bit you're watching Issues and Answers a production of the Government Information Service stay tuned we'll be back in a moment everyone say counseling counseling, counseling who doesn't have a right chance they'll be my pet, PS1 I'll never do that Mollie Glacier, just yesterday you asked me advice about your husband and we spent over an hour on the cell that's counseling, I don't want to do that just think about it Glacier when you're having difficulty with someone you ask your friends for advice to help you to deal with your problems but wouldn't you prefer getting advice huh, I hope we're not one of those who think counseling is for crazy people hmmm when you're in a situation where you don't need professional counseling but you don't need a condition of doctor's visit don't you know the Ministry of the Public Service has an employee assistance program they call it EAP which is offering six free counseling sessions for government employees Glacier, why don't you take advantage of it really it's free let me let me call the EAP unit ASAP because I want professional, did you say free free counseling but Glacier, who is the counseling there call the EAP unit at 468-2269 EAP works, let it work for you welcome back to issues and answers of sports we're talking about the history of the sports sector as well as the history of the department of sports so we've interestingly enough you've spoken a lot about new sports that would have been started maybe late in the country's life like martial arts in fact on another program you mentioned the development of e-sports sports that were not there before but we slowly developed over time can you talk about sports beforehand in St. Lucia, let's say what sort of sports were popular before the launch of the ministry of youth development in sports what were people playing back there basically people playing football, cricket netball has been wrong because people like the late URS booty in the 1960s was also famous for football culture people our history would not even say to us a lot of people don't know the history would say to you that in the complex next door to us there is a stand called the URS booty stand the unfortunately in Marsha we also had the Marsha court named after James Belgrave was also involved in sports I know the contemporary times may be recall James King King Riggler the Riggler King Kenneth Riggler King that's the gardens but people still refer to it as the gardens so also popular, well I won't say popular but at the time we used to play a lot of it was Lontennis and at the time it was known as Lontennis it is no longer referred to as Lontennis because the fact is that you play it on different surfaces so it's just referred to as tennis so there's tennis and there's table tennis table tennis for instance there was a lot of playing of table tennis at the police barracks and with the police club a lot of those places were into sports so table tennis tennis at one time we did try our hand at hockey that didn't really stay too long and of course swimming has been around for a long time but a lot of the times sports were confined to particular sectors of persons so the popularity of football was because everybody could play football so it was all over the place some of the other sports you persons would argue okay let's see if we could try something I could say to you for instance volleyball and volleyball came about in the late 1970's 1980's and was introduced by a set of peace corps to St. Lucia with the late John Audlum again it continued to rise in Cicero because John Audlum was the parliamentary for that area and so it developed there and so coming out of that in the 1980's a game there about there that is where the Cicero Cigars was born and the Cicero Cigars was known for volleyball throughout and later on when persons like myself joined the club in 1983 there about the same tradition but what happened to a Cicars for instance and what happens to a lot of our sports clubs a lot of our sports associations is that there is a spirit that always exists that persons are enthusiastic and they want to play and they want to do it but as a club you need to nurture that spirit and as much as you play the sport and you do things you need to continue to nurture that spirit and to encourage persons to ensure that that spirit lives on and I think Cicero Cigars that is one of the things that happened to it that we were not prepared to what happened to us because it could tell you in the early 90's there about well mid 90's there about we lost two of our members in quick succession and those were two vibrant members and I'm talking about Guy Brown who later on now because of his work in volleyball in the club we had the Guy Brown Memorial Tournament by the volleyball association and another individual Hubert Fede who was just an enthusiastic young man and after those persons the spirit of the clubs had to fade and win and a lot of people were just very troubled by that and at the time we never thought about doing counseling and doing this and so those are the kind of things that we need to do and that's what I'm saying you need to professionalize the sport so that not just the clubs and the associations but people generally who are volunteers could understand that there is something in it that we could do we could take it as a profession we could take it as a vocation but there's a lot of potential that we've not recognized as yet. So what about let's say community sporting how has that aided the country how has that developed the country? It hasn't as far as you'll get a heavy involvement one of the things for instance the ministry I tried sometime ago a junior sport program and that was a very interesting program it was funded by the San Lucia Olympic Committee at the time where every Saturday you had a number of sports where persons would come there from about 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock for two hours to practice a sport and we took 12 to maybe 14, 15 year olds to get them involved so there's netball, there's cricket and it was just a lovely sight because we also indicated from the ministry's standpoint that we needed to utilize our playing fields because on a Saturday you pass and you see every playing field empty and you wonder if people don't play on a Saturday now it is coming back slowly on a Sunday we need to get people back onto our playing fields and it will help in the whole situation with all the diseases that have sad diseases we need to get people back onto the playing fields. Now we've spoken extensively obviously about the history what do you think we are moving forward with the sports sector? I think generally in the sports sector there is a lot of potential and I suppose the next forum I said that this is the next major industry for St. Lucia but we have to look at it in a deliberate sort of way for the longest while we have looked at sports as a by the way something and you will play sports and you would and even that was reflected in government policies because it was always a ministry of something and you've developed in sports and so when we recognize that youth and sports could stand on its own and to develop as a ministry then we start to recognize that sports as an industry has potential I think we have to pay more in terms of sports because sports tourism is huge we look at the act and you see what the act is doing this is a sport, sailing is a sport so I am saying to you that there are other ways in which we could now develop we have started with our history to try to change some of our facilities around to accommodate that international level and Darren Sami came out everybody wanted to play cricket at Darren Sami it is now time for us to revisit the Darren Sami Grongs to refashion it in a more modernized era and to bring persons in again in terms of not just our local persons but sports tourism more importantly for me I think that we are lagging behind in terms of technology we are lagging we behind and we now have to start to develop a cadre of young persons or even older persons but persons generally a resource base where we could use the technology and you see a cricket match for instance and you see some fellas by the computer they are not playing solitaire you know contrary to what people think they are actually watching the game seeing what it is taking stats analyzing and they coming back to change we are back with that and so this is what we need to do in all of the sports use the technology use the stats that we have been generating to ensure that we move from where we are we could catch up very quickly in terms of getting there in the way that we need to get there that's very good you are clearly one of the more passionate followers of sports administrators in the sports sector I honestly think that you should sit down and just write an entire book whenever it is that you have the chance because there is a lot your resource of information there is a lot that you can teach people about the history of the country especially with regards to sports but I want to thank you for coming on our program we have come to the end of our show I hope you can come again to speak about any subject under the sports umbrella pleasure you are watching issues and answers I am your host Jacques Hingson Compton please stay tuned to more content from the government of St. Lucia and the national television network