THIS weekend will certainly be a memorable one for former veteran Jamaican football star, Richard “Real Kill” Davy.

Davy, now 70 years old, is one of the most remarkable footballers Jamaica has produced, and despite immigrating to the United States in the 1970s his name still rings a loud and charming note when it is mentioned in football circles, including the Jamaican Diaspora in the United States.

So after more than 50 years as a football icon, Davy is scheduled to be honoured by friends and fans during the annual True Blue Weekend hosted by the Jamaica College Old Boys Association (JCOBA) in Sunset Lakes, Miramar, Florida, over two days, Friday and Saturday, this weekend.

The True Blue Weekend is an expansion of the annual Ziadie Cup soccer match between St George’s College Old Boys Association of Florida, Inc and the JCOBA of Florida. The match is staged annually in memory of Dennis Ziadie who coached both schools to win the Manning Cup.

The staging is likely to attract a crowd of over 1,000 people — mainly Jamaicans and mostly those who want to enjoy both the football and the food, refreshment and entertainment which will be available at the event which will be held for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

One of the most unassuming football stars of his period, Davy, who was born on May 3, 1953, is best remembered as the architect of the winning goal which catapulted the Howard University Bisons to the 1974 Division 1 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championship in the US.

The Bisons soccer team posted a perfect 19-0-0 season record, one which remains unbroken and unmatched by any other collegiate soccer team in the United States, after more than 35 years.

Prior to taking up a full scholarship to Howard, while still a schoolboy in the mid-1971 Jamaican high school football season Davy was recruited for national duty for Jamaica when he scored on his debut with the Jamaican team against Haiti, breaking the Jamaicans’ three-year goalscoring drought in international competitions.

That same year Davy led the Wolmer’s Boys’ School team to the triple crown of schoolboy soccer — Manning Cup, Walker Cup and Olivier Shield — which was already the symbol of all-island schoolboy football supremacy. It was a feat Wolmerians can never forget and which made the school the second in history to reach that goal.

But then it was about time for Jamaica to produce another world-class schoolboy footballer, following in the footsteps of the dazzling Allan “Skill” Cole, and about time for Wolmer’s to win the Manning Cup again after 32 years in the wilderness.

Davy dismantled the Jamaican high school goalscoring record for a single season for Wolmer’s in 1970 by scoring a total of 23 goals — a record which lasted for 27 years until it was broken by Kevin “Pele” Wilson.

By the time he had completed his high school career he had established himself by scoring six goals in a single game versus Meadowbrook High School, ending the season with a another record of scoring 23 goals for the season and a career record of 48 goals.

Manning Cup fans had become familiar with his record-breaking results when he won a Manning Cup Championship with Jamaica College High School (JC) in 1968, leading the local high school rankings with the unusual record of having won the championships while a part of two separate schools, four seasons apart.

Prior to that, Davy led JC’s Colts XI in 1967 to the finals of the Under-14 competition, where they lost to Excelsior.

Unfortunately, violence led to the abandonment of the 1972 and 1973 schoolboy football competitions. But, while it represents another milestones as a schoolboy football icon, it clearly marked the path for his future success as a football star in the United States.

Like a number of other members of the Wolmer’s team, Davy was adopted by Howard University where he led the team in assists and was the second-leading scorer from 1972 to 1975. He had learnt enough playing alongside top Manning Cup players like Warren Toulange, Keith Tulloch and ace midfielder Fitzroy “Bunny Crocus” Robinson to take on that level of the game.

While at Howard, Davy reached the national semi-finals three years in a row (1972, 1974, and 1975) and played in the Championship game twice, 1972 and 1974, winning in 1974 and securing fourth place in 1975. The Howard team was on probation in 1973 when he was selected to the All-American All-South first team for the 1975 season.

After leaving Howard he was drafted by the Connecticut Yankees of the American Soccer League (ASL), where he played for several years and for a number of teams including the Washington DC-based Jamaica “Nats” in various leagues (professional and semi-professional) through to 1987, when he retired from the game.