OF all the developments in Jamaica’s football over recent years, among the more intriguing has been the establishment and growth of Mount Pleasant Football Academy.

The well-resourced St Ann-based entity is located on 88 acres of land.

Mount Pleasant embraces a top premier league club and a residential youth football academy with a Ministry of Education-approved school curriculum — the first of its kind in Jamaica.

We recall our enthusiasm seven years ago, following the launch of the project, and our feeling that it could become a game changer towards the eventual, genuine ‘professionalisation’ of Jamaican football.

At the time we commended Englishman Mr Peter Gould, who owns and finances the academy and club, for his forward-looking initiative in twinning a school to a senior programme.

“Such academies [for football] are to be found in many other countries worldwide; however, it is a first for Jamaica which is underdeveloped in terms of any professional approach to sport,” we said in this space, back in October 2018.

The ambition, necessarily long-term, is to invest in and nurture talent, and to earn from the sale of players over time.

We applaud the stick-to-itiveness shown by Mount Pleasant’s owner and project managers despite what felt like ill-advised decisions such as the firing, followed by rapid rehiring, of Mr Theodore Whitmore as head coach a year ago.

Undoubtedly, there was disappointment that after winning the premier league in 2023 Mount Pleasant have lost in finals twice in a row (2024 and 2025) on penalty kicks to the technically and tactically superb Cavalier FC.

However, we are told in the sports section of this newspaper last week that Mount Pleasant’s directors are satisfied with the club’s progress.

Crucially, there is increasing transition of talented young players from the junior programme to the senior team.

Sporting Director Mr Paul Christie says that in the 2024-25 season “… we had in excess of 10 players under the age of 16 who made their first team début. Four of them would have scored in the premier league…”

And further that “…the overall view of the season is that, for the first time, we see… where there’s an amalgamation of the academy and the first team — and that’s the whole point of this project.”

Indeed, Mr Christie says the progression of academy youth to the senior level has reduced the need to purchase top-tier players.

Says he: “…since I’m at Mount Pleasant it will be the least amount of incoming transfers — and that’s testimony to the work that is done at the academy…

“We have kids …who are raising their hands, not just to get minutes but [to] make contributions …”

If, to the reader, this newspaper sounds like a huge fan of the Mount Pleasant project it’s because we truly are. Just as was the case in 2018, we believe success of the Mount Pleasant football programme would be a huge boost for the totality of Jamaica’s football and a wonderful example for those with an itch to invest in sport.

We join the 2018 dream of Mr Tony James, former president of the Jamaica Football Federation, with regard to how Jamaica’s football could grow, “If we could [only] find three more Mount Pleasants …”