MAY PEN, Clarendon —Jamalco Football Club are the toast of Clarendon after topping the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) Charley’s JB Rum Premier League play-offs to qualify for the upcoming Red Stripe Premier League.

Unbeaten Jamalco finished with 16 points in the four-team, home-and-away tournament — five consecutive victories and one draw.

Fully financed by the south Clarendon-based bauxite/alumina company Jamalco, the team will be accompanied to the top tier of Jamaican club football by KSAFA champions Maverley/Hughenden. Other teams in the qualifying group were Brazil FC of St Ann and Granville United of St James.

Jamalco’s success means that there will be three Clarendon-based teams in the Red Stripe Premier League. The others are last season’s beaten Premier League finalists Portmore United and semi-finalists Humble Lion.

Down the years, several teams have been promoted to Jamaica’s top club league, only to rapidly fall back. But if words can be relied on, Jamalco’s youthful Head Coach Rayon Johnson will be stoutly resisting any such fate. For one thing, he has plans to build his team into a much stronger force to deal with the rigours of Jamaican top-level football.

“We are aiming to go into the Premier League convincingly, but in order to do that we have a lot of work to do and we intend to pull out all the stops,” he told Jamaica Observer Central in a recent interview.

“We are going to step up the work; we have a few things that we need to work on to ensure that our footing is right and that we maintain our discipline when we get to the league,” Johnson added.

Among other elements, Johnson is eyeing additional players to strengthen his squad.

“We will be looking to carry over a stronger unit to the league, so we will definitely be adding a few players to our squad,” he said.