SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — THERE will be an additional dimension to the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association’s (ISSA) schoolboys’ football this season, as internet company BrawtaSports will track statistics during both the daCosta Cup and Manning Cup competitions.

Teams of two will be embedded within each of the approximately 120 schools participating in both competitions, and their findings are expected to go a far way in helping the sport in several areas.

Two youngsters — 18-year-old Donovan Campbell of Green Island High in Hanover and Dejaughan Hibbert, a 14-year-old student at Muschett High in Trelawny — will be among the first set of statisticians that will track their teams for the 2015 season.

They were among over 24 volunteers from seven western-based area schools who attended last Thursday’s workshop held at Godfrey Stewart High in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.

Campbell, who represented Green Island in the daCosta Cup competition last year but will be too old to play in the upcoming season, was excited about the chance to remain close to his school’s team and the game.

“Coming here to learn about statistics and how to keep statistics for football games was very educational,” Campbell told the Jamaica Observer West.

“I found out that it is very important, and whoever has the opportunity to do this has a whole lot of work to do, but it’s also fun as you still will have a chance to be involved in the sport that you love. I love football and played last year, and even though I won’t be able to play this year, I can be the statistician and stay involved in the sport and my school, and so I welcome the chance,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hibbert said he would be heading back to Muschett High where he will teach others how to keep statistics so they too can become involved.

“It (the workshop) was very good and keeping statistics will help me to learn more about the game, and so I will go back to my school and show them how it works and try to get others involved,” he said.

The workshop at Godfrey Stewart was one of five held across the island last week.

Leighton Walters, head of BrawtaSports, emphasised that the benefits of tracking statistics will be widespread.

“This is an initiative that we saw the need for; something more to be added to what the players contribute to the game and for historical references and inventory,” he said.

The benefits, he pointed out, are many and varied as it will not only help coaches to track their own team performances, but it could assist players to bolster their résumés when seeking university scholarships.

“This adds to the coaches’ arsenal and adds to players understanding of the game,” he told the Observer West. “It can be used by the coaches as a tactical aid. They can get a better picture of how their own players perform over a period of time, as well as they can also see the results of other teams they will come up against later.”

Action on the field will be tracked in 17 key areas and each school will have a team of two: a spotter and a recorder. The spotter will be watching the game and reports to the recorder who writes down the information on a special form that will be provided.

After the game the information will be fed into the BrawtaSports website where it will later be translated into “fancy graphics and analysis,” Walters said.

It is crucial, he told the volunteers, that the information for both teams correspond or the information will be “thrown out”. He explained that measures will be put in place to safeguard against teams embellishing their own statistics. If for example, he said, one team reported they had 15 shots at goal, but the other team only reports five shots against them, the information could be rejected.