MAY PEN, Clarendon — Many grassroots football supporters at the West Park Community Centre last Tuesday seem convinced that Mark Rodney will be the next top player to graduate from the acclaimed May Pen Primary School nursery.

The boy, aged 12 and standing at just about 5ft, has real talent; the kind that, if nurtured properly, could see him turning out to be a really good footballer.

Rodney, who will be attending Clarendon College in September, seems an intelligent lad, too. Going up against some huge defenders, he did not try to match them pound for pound; he knew quite well he would lose that battle — perhaps even hurting himself.

What he did, however, was use his body to brace his opponent, or use a fake jump as a decoy to throw off the defender. It was not a one-off trick either; he repeated it successfully more than once.

Ironically, he is not even remotely close to being the best player to walk through the gates at May Pen Primary, but he was clearly the best on the field on Tuesday — rivalled only by his colleague Tyrice Henry.

Henry is younger, much smaller and quite a different player from Rodney. He is more of a playmaker — really composed on the ball and is never afraid to take on his opponents, even if he is outnumbered.

In keeping with his talent, he plays a more central role than Rodney, who prefers to stay wide-right — sometimes left. That position seems to suit his skills perfectly — pacey, crafty and provides good crosses — but he also demonstrated that he can be quite a threat from the middle of the park as well.

On the only two occasions that he drifted inside he had instant impact — scoring both goals — three minutes apart, which gifted May Pen a deserved 2-0 extra-time win over Race Course Primary for the Guardian Life-sponsored Clarendon Football Association Under-13 trophy.

The victory gave May Pen their 14th hold on the coveted trophy. No other school has won more titles than them in that age group.

“We have been winning it since Crimson Dawn was the sponsor,” Valentine Manning, the man who has been spearheading the sports programme at May Pen for many years, told the Jamaica Observer Central.

“This was our second final for the year,” he added. “We lost the LIME competition on penalties to (Denbigh Primary), but decided that we were going to win this one.”

While Rodney and Henry were clearly the standout players, the win was a total team effort. Just about every player on that May Pen team looked comfortable on the ball.

That is how it has been for quite a while now, and if Tuesday’s performance is anything to go by, the trend might just continue for some time to come.

“We get a lot of players every year,” Manning revealed. “Some are already accustomed to the game, while some are not, but we work with them as a group so that everybody can we develop their skills.

“At the same time, we get a lot of support from the principal and teachers at the school. They see to it that the players focus, not only on sports, but also on their book,” added Manning.

Over the course of the last three decades, no other primary or preparatory school has produced more players for Clarendon’s youth programmes than May Pen. A number of them have gone on to represent Jamaica at various levels.

Allien Whittaker, Kevrol Stewart, Andre Blake, John Ross Doyley readily come to mind. The parish’s best female player Kimia Parker, now playing overseas, also came through the May Pen Primary nursery, before moving on to Clarendon College and later Excelsior High.

“When we do our research with the May Pen Primary players, we realised that a number of them actually come from communities where a lot of football is being played,” noted Garfield Carney, the longstanding Clarendon U-13 coach.

“In the evenings, in communities that we classify as “ghetto”, the kids will always go out [to] the football field and play with even bigger guys, which helps to define their talents. I think that is what gives them the edge over players from other primary and prep schools in the parish,” said Carney.

“May Pen is the largest primary school, maybe not only in the parish but the entire country, so they also have a large number to choose from; they could easily put together three or four teams. When you can choose from such a large number of youngsters, you can always come up with a quality team every year,” he added.

Carney, also the daCosta Cup coach at Denbigh High, reckons other primary and prep schools in the parish can use May Pen’s success as a template to improve their programmes.

“May Pen Primary players have the opportunity of going out in the evenings to play, so what the other schools can do is probably introduce weekend programmes, which would give the youngsters more time with the football and expose them to the fundamentals of the game,” he advised.

“Having proper equipment to work with is also very crucial at this stage,” Carney added. “They need to have a lot of balls because when you have one ball for 20 players it won’t be effective. You need to have at least one ball to two players; that way you can get a lot more work done in terms of developing their technical abilities.”