MONTEGO BAY, St James — IT has been a bad month for veteran sports official Steve Bucknor, as on Monday night he lost his bid to become the new president of the St James Football Association. The cooasion was the biennial Annual General meeting held at the Montego Bay Cricket Club.

Mere weeks after he was relieved of his duties as the coach of the Cornwall College daCosta Cup team, after just two years in the job, Bucknor lost by the smallest of margins, one vote — 41-42 — to Texcheus Nembhard in a nail-biting finish.

The vote followed lengthy and sometimes acrimonious discussions on the tenure of the previous administration.

The announcement of Nembhard's name was met with loud cheering and applause.

Eighty-five of the possible 104 delegates turned out for the AGM.

David Watt — who acted as president for three months after another acting president, George Evans, stepped down — was elected as first vice-president, beating Brian Miller 27-16 in a vote off.

Miller was elected unopposed as the second vice-president while Bruce Gaynor was returned unopposed as the general secretary.

Tracey Reid is the new assistant secretary while businessman Macklin Peterkin is the new treasurer, both unopposed.

Lilly-Mae Crawford, Joy Nelson, Gregory Daley,Tyrone Gordon, and Juraney Quarrey were elected as the five council members.

Nembhard, who served as treasurer in the previous administration, described his election to the top position as "a step up for me", adding that he was expecting support from all of those who were elected, "I hope that persons serving on the board will be prepared to start doing some work for football."

While he said he was prepared to take decisive action when and where necessary, Nembhard said his board would be one of consensus.