Jamaicans often hear and indeed, recognise, that “COVID still a keep”.

But word this week that the annual schoolboy football competitions return to “normal” on September 10 has been taken in stride by one and all. That’s testimony to natural, universal human instinct and determination to get on with life, regardless of the hurdles.

Just a few days after the start of the new school year, the more than 100-year-old Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA) will begin its 2022 schoolboy football season with a triple-header at Sabina Park in Kingston.

That historic ground is Jamaica’s headquarters for cricket but it also boasts one of the best surfaces for football in the country, as well as adequate lighting for night-time sport.

Garvey Maceo, defending champions in the all-rural daCosta Cup, will face Kemps Hill High at 2:30 pm while urban Manning Cup champions Kingston College are up against Calabar High at 5:00 pm. Two other urban schools, St George’s College and Ardenne High, will then do battle at 7:00 pm.

ISSA says the upcoming 2022 schoolboy football season will have an almost full complement of 37 Manning Cup and 81 daCosta Cup teams. The top-tier, All-Island knockout tournament, formerly known as the Champions Cup or the President’s Cup, is also set to return.

Beaten quarter-finalists in the daCosta Cup and Manning Cup will compete in the lower tier, knock-out Ben Francis Cup and Walker Cup, respectively.

The schoolboy football season will end in December, having returned to its three-month format.

We note that telecoms giant Digicel, distribution/manufacturing group Wisynco, and KFC are set to share sponsorship responsibilities.

Readers will recall that the novel coronavirus pandemic shut the door on schoolboy football — consistently Jamaica’s most popular series of events on the sporting calendar — in 2020, as it did most extra-curricular activity that year.

Also as a result of COVID-19, the 2021 schoolboy football season was pushed back to early 2022, with truncated competitions. We recall that only 21 teams participated in the Manning Cup and 53 in the daCosta Cup.

Often in this space we have pointed to the importance of good, even playing surfaces to facilitate attractive football, the proper nurturing of players, and to minimise the risk of injury.

We note that unlike earlier this year when venues were selected by ISSA, we are back to the pre-pandemic situation with schools having responsibility for home venues in the preliminary rounds. We don’t expect perfection but every effort should be made to ensure reasonable playing surfaces.

Beyond all of the above, Jamaicans should not discount the value of schoolboy football as a morale booster within the high school education sector and wider society. Also, it remains the leading development phase for Jamaican football.

Yet, there is a clear and pressing need for the Jamaica Football Federation, its member clubs and affiliates, as well as various youth academies, to do more to build and nurture young talent outside of the school system in a professional, business-like environment.

Much praise is due to ISSA. But all stakeholders need to come to grips with the reality that a three-month schools’ football season, by itself, is not enough, if Jamaica’s football is to prosper and grow.