DRAX HALL, St Ann – Acclimatising to the Jamaican culture will not be a problem says Walter “Wally” Downes, the new addition to the Mount Pleasant Football Academy’s coaching staff who will be assigned to the youth programme.

The much-travelled former Wimbledon midfielder, who had a stint as a coach in India and claims he was a “massive Bob Marley fan” as a youngster, is expected to join the staff at Mount Pleasant FA and said his history of working in different conditions should be of benefit to him when he starts his duties later this year.

Asked in a recent interview if working in India would help him adopt to conditions here, he said it would. “It’s taking away the fear that I would not be capable of giving my all to the team, I wouldn’t be worried about being homesick, I wouldn’t be worried about missing family,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be worried integrating with different cultures because as many cultures as there are in Jamaica I can assure you that there are a lot more in India, a lot, lot more, so it teaches me that I can relate to people of different cultures, different thinking, try to get my ideas across to them but absorb as much of the local culture as I possibly can.”

Downes claims he is not a stranger to Jamaica and its culture. “This country is steeped in history and you know stuff from [the movie] Cool Runnings, and I was a massive Bob Marley fan when I was a kid, stuff that you know anyway which is ingrained in you because of the links between the two countries but also getting out and just finding out stuff on the ground which I have never experienced before.”

Taking the job, he said, was easy after meeting with President Peter Gould and members of the board as well as members of the coaching staff. “Not difficult at all, once I had spoken initially with Peter, then I spoke to two coaches on a more football side of things…we spoke, just us three about football for a couple of hours, no board members, no Peter, just us three football guys talking, and we hit it off straight away. It’s wonderful to see what they have been doing, it’s wonderful to see what they have got and the enthusiasm the coaches both have for their teams…that was a terrific talk, that could have been a conversation anywhere in the world, just three football guys talking.”

His introduction to the board served only to cement his decision. “After that I was introduced to the board members, again I have been in board meetings where there are sour faces and they are old and they are not happy, but when I looked around, the board members were just enthusiastic, it was terrific, they were engaged in what they were doing, they didn’t have any worries about what was not going to be all right, what if this doesn’t happen, what if that doesn’t happen. They know what they want, they know what their focus is and they are all together looking to drive stuff forward, looking to make it an excuse-free environment, and it was really like a breath of fresh air for me.”