IRWIN, St James — Kemar Ricketts, newly appointed head coach of the Calabar High School football team, says he is not looking too far ahead as he prepares for his first season in the urban area schoolboy competition.

After establishing himself, particularly in rural area circles, by winning the Ben Francis Cup at BB Coke High in 2019 and then guiding Munro College deep into the daCosta Cup in the 2024 season, Ricketts is considered one of the rising stars of schoolboy football coaching.

Red Hills Road-based Calabar High last won the urban area Manning Cup title in 2005. And though for many the hiring of Ricketts signals the school’s intention to recapture past glory, he is calling for patience.

As one of the ranked teams, Calabar will sit out the first round of this season’s Manning Cup, which starts next month.

Ricketts, who guided Calabar to the final of the inaugural Orville Sandcroft Unity Cup preseason tournament versus Glenmuir High at Irwin High on July 12, says their first game in the Walker Cup is his immediate focus.

“The expectations for every coach is they always want to win, but as for me this year, we have a bunch of individuals that we are trying to create a team with. Once we create a team, then we can set our short, our medium, our long-term goals, and then we can see exactly where it takes us,” he said.

Kemar Ricketts, Calabar High football coach

Ricketts, who coached Treasure Beach FC in the top-flight Jamaica Premier League, emphasised he is taking a patient approach.

“For me, it’s always stage by stage. The first business is to get over that first game against Dunoon Park that we have in the Walker Cup, and then we can go from there,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I can’t stand here and say we are going to win everything or we’re not going to win everything. What I want my team to be is be consistent, be focused, and keep working hard and be disciplined, and we put the energy in and see where it takes us,” the coach continued.

He said, however, the more advanced football culture in Kingston and St Andrew could reduce some of the challenges of him making the transition to coaching in new surroundings, given that his current players would have likely been exposed to more youth competitions at the club level.

“I’m not in competition as yet, so I really can’t rank or even judge the transition as yet. But being in Kingston has been great, a great experience,” he said.

“These boys have been playing football and I think the culture in the urban area is a bit different from the rural area as it relates to development, as it relates to a lot of the competition I have seen. I think KSAFA (Kingston and St Andrew Football Association) has been doing a really great job in terms of putting on competitions, something that is totally different from where I’m coming from,” Ricketts explained.