Blacka Pearl

Frank151: You played for the national team?
Walter Boyd: I started playing for the country, I got called during the high school days so that was pretty special for me. When I started playing I used to come off the bench and stuff, until I gradually improved.

It felt good, I was there when the country went to the World Cup. Just a lot of great experiences. Until then I never traveled before. I come from very, very humble surroundings. Just mother and father worked nine to five hard, just to maintain, keep us going from day to day. Then football come and opened up this whole other world.

I’m from Kingston, at a place called Allman Town. Then I moved and went to St. Aloysius Primary School. When I went to live in Mandeville Gardens I went to Excelsior High School. From there I got called for the national team. From where I come from, day to day, you see shooting, you see a lot of negative things that can try to leave you any way. A lot of times you get up, the friends that were there the night before with you, when you wake up the next day you see your friend is on the ground dead. It still is today in a lot of places. But to really grow and come through stuff like that, to be like somebody where people recognize you, and give you respect in the street. Yeah it feel good, because it feel like you coming from a nobody to a somebody. Because of football, football did all that, I’m very grateful, very thankful.


F151: What do you tell the kids now that you are a role model?
WB: Back when I was a kid, we had a few people around, but we didn’t have any real real role models, people that could tell us things. We had the elders around that tried to guide us, but now that I have grown and I have got certain experiences, I’ve traveled the world, and gotten a chance to hold up my head a little about where we’re coming from. A lot of time I try to tell them that even though it’s so hard, never give up. Just always, never give up the fight.

F151: How important is it for Jamaica to develop a better system?
WB: I’ve played overseas, I played in the U.S., and then I went to England and played for a bit. The thing is, with here now we have a lot of raw talent, but we don’t have that much infrastructure, investment at a youth level, to let them go through a system so that the kids, if they like football, they have things to help them improve their skills. There’s not that much. It’s like if you play football you might be lucky and make it through, there’s no system like you come up through a system, and you have people looking at you, you have training facility. You have youth league, but it’s not properly well organized or funded. The people are very passionate, they love football. But when it comes to the funding part, we don’t really have anything set up to give anybody any reason to want to go into football. It just has to be the love. If you are playing, we don’t have a professional league, we don’t have a semi-professional league. You don’t have anything to encourage the youth to look towards. It’s mostly like trying to get a scholarship they can go overseas. We need a program out here, because we have a lot of raw talent being wasted.

Sometimes with the youths, they don’t have anything to work towards, they tend to get caught up in other things. Cause sometimes, some of the people playing for the country, they’re not really the best, they’re just the ones who made it through.

Sometimes it’s good that I’m here, because people can look at you as a living testament. Even though you may not be the richest or the greatest, but youth they see somebody that has come through the struggle and they’re still here.