As we move towards Jamaica’s 60th anniversary and Independence celebration we choose to highlight some memorable sporting events in the country’s history.
The Manning Cup trophy is considered one of the most prestigious sports title in the island of Jamaica. It is an annual event amongst school boy footballers that started in 1914. Representatives from St George’s College, Jamaica College, Wolmer’s Boys and Calabar High gathered in 1913 to develop the format and launch the competition in the following year. Since its inception the competition has been won most by Jamaica College with 30 titles to date.
Amongst all the exciting games that have been played over the years we have decided to highlight a game that we believe is the greatest upset in Manning cup history.
There have been many games which ended with wide margins or where an under dog team managed to defeat the favorite, but this game takes the trophy. After all, it happened during a Manning Cup finals match and the finising score was 6-1.
The game we are talking about is the 1987 Manning Cup final that placed the lowly favored St Andrew Technical High School (STATHS) against season favorites Excelsior. STATHS started off the season on a slow note but Morris Cyrus, one of the heros of the triumphant 1987 team, explained that the pace was exactly what the coach wanted in order to have the team develop and gel as needed. No one took them seriously owing to a string of drawn games and getting booted early from the Walker Cup competition.
Ironically, STATHS coach Lebert Halliman is a past student of Excelsior. Halliman’s first stint at coaching was at Garvey Maceo High School in the daCosta Cup where he took them to the semi-finals in 1984, eventually losing to Cornwall College.
His work was so impressive that STATHS recruited him and brought him back to Kingston.
The stage was set. It was Saturday November 21st 1987 and 20,000 people were in attendance at the national Stadium. Coach Halliman confidently told the Gleaner at the time that his team was peaking at the right time and he will not lose the game.
In a later interview Cyrus said despite being the under dogs, they were mentally prepared. They were driven to be the team that would win the title for their school for the very first time. To add fuel to fire, Frank Brown, the Excelsior coach had passed some disparaging remarks that STATHS was not up to their standard and Dunoon Technical, who STATHS had beaten would have been a more valiant contender for the title.
The game started. STATHS utilizing their unique 2-6-2 formation proved too much for Excelsior. As explained by Cyrus, this allowed the wing backs level with a four-man midfield and with the license to overlap. The formation neutralized the favored team as it gave STATHS a lot of options and freedom to attack.
Most people in attendance were in awe when Cyrus sizzled and stunned with two fairly early goals in the 14th and 21st minutes. Excelsior was unable to recover and before you know it the score was 6-1 with more STATHS goals coming from Chris Davis, Andrew Hart, and Dennis Brown in the second half of the game.
STATHS went on to face an undefeated Ruseas team in the Olivier Shield. That team comprised of future Reggae Boyz Michael Graham, Aaron Lawrence, ‘Shortly’ Malcolm, and Mark ‘Hagler’ Wilson. At the end of two games STATHS claimed the victory on a 1-0 score line, winning the home game in Kingston.
Additionally, four members of this STATHS team made the All Manning cup team but got defeated by the All DaCosta cup team. The members were Morris Cyrus, carl Binger, Roderick Lawrence and Marvin Chin.
Cyrus strongly believes that bonding, maintaining focus, love and discipline was the main reason their 1987 STATHS team was able to pull off such a Cinderella season.
