Barbican FC once again harvested the bulk of the top and individual prizes on offer at the 2014-2015 Sherwin Williams Women’s Premier League Football Awards Ceremony at the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Headquarters, St Lucia Avenue, in Kingston on Thursday.

Waterhouse, winners of the Colour Scape KO in 2011, were the runners-up in both the League and KO competitions, and walked away with just over $300,000 along with the Fair Play Award in the Premier League.

However, in spite of the moment of conviviality and celebration following months of toil on the football field, the awards ceremony found time to recognise the scholarly achievement of one of their own — Sherona Forrester — the Clarendon native who has attained academic excellence of becoming a 2015 Jamaica Rhodes Scholarship winner and is on her way to the prestigious University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Forrester is a member of Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz team as well as the UWI team,one of the 10 teams sponsored by Sherwin Williams. Pointing to the fact that when Sherwin Williams undertook to sponsor women’s football, Ian Forbes, managing director of Sherwin Williams, said “the framing of the individuals complete mind and the body concepts were taken into account. Therefore, we in the women’s football family are confident that her (Forrester’s) new learning environment will provide a perfect platform for even greater successes in academic and cultural exploits”.

Barbican won both the Sherwin Williams Premier League and the Colour Scape KO tournaments, and pocketed an even $500,000 along with medals and several awards for individual brilliance on the field of play. Waterhouse were the runners-up in both the League and KO competitions and walked away with just over $300,000 along with the Fair Play Award in the Premier League.

Prepared and cared for by Charles Edwards, Barbican registered their eighth- consecutive lien on the league title and 11th overall in the 14 years of the tournament, along with a seven-time haul of the KO series over the same period.

Meanwhile, Jamaica Football Federation president Captain Horace Burrell was unstinting in his praise of Forbes for his vision and continued support for the advancement of Jamaica’s women’s football.

Seeing Forbes and his company’s support as only a beacon of light on jewels, Burrell has called on the women CEOs of the country to come forward and assist the programme in its development. The JFF boss pointed to the fact that it was not the lack of talent that has prevented Jamaica from joining Mexico and the USA in participating in the Women’s World Cup of football, but that of financial resources.

“And I am taking this opportunity to encourage women managers of this country — those who are CEOs — I am going to encourage all those females in high positions to take a little break and look at women’s football programmes and try to give us a helping hand.”