Nat’l County Meet Preparation Starts


By Weah Ephraim Harris



The 2011/2012 National County Sports Meet is less than three weeks away across Liberia. Many counties have started preparing their kickball teams ahead of the heated zonal fixtures that will take place at four venues for the first time.

Organizers of this year’s competition have placed the 15 participating counties into four groups to meet at four venues. Bomi, Grand Cape Mount, Gbapolu and Montserrado counties constitute group one with Tubmanburg, Bomi County, serving as the venue.

Grand Gedeh, Maryland, River Gee and Grand Kru counties are in group two, and are slated to play their games in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County. Grand Kru County is expected to feature a purely Monrovia-based team.

In group three are Grand Bassa and Rivercess counties. Both counties will sort things out in Lower Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, while group four brings together Bong, Lofa and Nimba counties in Gbarnga, Bong County.

Montserrado County unfortunate performance last season has led the county to hire new technical staffs. They played a test game last Monday against Margibi County at the Samuel Kanyon Doe practice pitch. Montserrado County needs to double-up her endeavor to surmount her colleagues in the Tubmanburg qualification zone.

Bong County’s former 200 meters Track and Field Champion Korlu Malata has moved to Margibi County Kickball squad in preparation to improve their performance this season. The county is placed in a tough zone with Grand Bassa and other rough opponents that frequently do well at the qualification level.

2011 Kickball 3rd place champion Nimba County is emerging with high speed as they construct their squad to preserve the championship and press on from the qualification phase fixture.

Bong County is pushing to revisit the top three at the end of the competition after they lost the 3rd place award to Nimba County early this year, but the county must invest cash in order to uphold her old players who have been approached by Maryland County, Nimba and other money speaking counties to beef up their contingents.

Reports from Grand Gedeh indicate that the county is close to concluding their delegation for registration ahead of the officially kickoff of this year’s Sports Meet due to take place in Zwedru.

Rivercess County that had their icebreaker against Grand Gedeh last season have been zoned in Grand Bassa box with Sinoe and Margibi counties. The group qualification games will be played in Buchanan, Grand Bassa.

Lofa County great effort last season to survive from the big eight that had Bong, Maryland, Nimba, Rivercess has met up with another huge challenge as they are paired with Bong, Nimba and Margibi County at zonal level.

Lofa kickball team experienced financial struggle last season, which contributed to the players’ low presentation. The team is currently preparing at the ELWA sport pitch as it recruits some new legs.

Bomi, Grand Cape, Gbapolu, Montserrado are all building up their teams with most of the players from Monrovia, but reports revealed that most of these counties are going to recruit their players from Monrovia. Grand Cape Mount will be off to Buchanan city this weekend to have a test fixture with Grand Bassa Kickball squad.

Meanwhile, fourteen kickball teams participated in a one-day jamboree held at the Jacob Town sports pitch on a knock-Out basis last weekend. The games started with lots of heartening fashion from various teams that had lots of new players in their delegations, but it was Angel of the Sky kickback team that whipped Aries Kickball squad in the grand final late Saturday evening to emerge as champion of the one-day Jamboree.

Last season county meet ended like this in the kickball division. Rivercess County made six home runs against Nimba County, which won them on 10 home runs for the 3rd place. Maryland County downed Bong County after seven rounds of kicking and defending, scoring 11 homes against two to emerge as champion.


Monrovia FC Swedish Coach Starts Work

Monrovia FC hallucination to develop Liberian football has gained another step forward after the club imported an international Swedish coach Johan Sandahl, formerly of Swedish top flight Dalkurd FF; it is the first time in the history of Liberia for a club to hire a European coach.

Sandahl will spend three weeks in Liberia, assessing the team and will share knowledge with the current batch of local coaches at the club that will benefit the team.

According to reports from the club CEO Wilhelm Myrer, Monrovia FC is using all professional means to add value to Liberian football and create a nice and enjoyable atmosphere for players to have a tensionless mind while in action on the field.

They are the only current Liberian side that has exported more than a dozen of players in less than a year and are currently building up a new contingent that will depart the country early next year for professional contracts in Europe.

During a conversation with the Swedish coach on Monday when he took over the club at the ELWA Sports ground, Coach Sandahl said it was his first time to experience such a rough and hard playing pitch, something that is not in Europe.

Coach Sandahl confessed that Liberia has lots of talents, but it’s going to take proper calculation and preparation to sharpen these talents for future benefit to the country.

During his first three weeks, Coach Sandahl is going to look at the various kinds of talents and style of play of the players currently attached to the club and those that are on tryout at the club ahead of the coming season.

Recently, after Brage Lennart "Kral" Smith for just a week ago turned down a contract offer from KBK, the club has now turned its gaze toward John Sandahl, who recently dropped out of their mission in Dalkurd.

Michael Linder of KBK Board confirms that Sandahl was in Karlstad for discussion. - This is a young, modern coach. “There is a coach, who we think would fit in with us and that is why we are showing interest”, says Linder to nwt.se.