By Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter
TOP RANKED football coach Geoffery Maxwell was yesterday appointed head coach of Westmoreland Wray & Nephew National Premier League (NPL) outfit Reno United for the upcoming season.
Maxwell replaces Linval 'Palla' Wilson, who served as interim coach after Donald 'Billy' Perkins parted company with the club last season when they had won a series of matches.
The man who has been winning titles from schoolboy Manning Cup level at Excelsior to the NPL at Waterhouse says he is very enthused about his new job at three-time NPL champions Reno and is looking forward to restoring the club to its glory days.
"I hope to rebuild Reno, getting them to be champions again and to the status of being the top club in the West," Maxwell told The Gleaner in an interview yesterday. "That's why I am here. I am happy with the current management structure and the objectives the club has set for itself."
Partnering Maxwell in the coaching staff will be Wilson, Boysie Nicholas and Stephen Wedderburn (goalkeeper coach), former Reno players and long time members of the coaching staff. All three have represented Jamaica at football and Maxwell sees this as a plus for both himself and the Westmoreland club.
"The good thing about it is they have all played football at the national level and unlike some of those I have worked with before they have an understanding of what it is to play football at a very high level," the former national coach explained.
Reno will be the third Premier League to be coached by Maxwell this year and his fifth in less than four years. Last season in particular was very rough on Maxwell. He parted company with Tivoli Gardens in January before being dismissed from Village in May. However, it was not performance that led to the clubs ending their relationship with him.
In fact, Tivoli was consistently in the top half of the Premier League standings before a claim that he was "not seeing eye to eye with players" led to his dismissal. After taking Village United to the Premier League semi-finals, he was dismissed for publicly lashing out at key players and threatening disciplinary action against them.
Maxwell blamed lack of professionalism for the fall-outs.
"I am too professional and I have been working with too much amateurish management," he said.
"It is a sickness here in Jamaica that when clubs surface and are doing extremely well management tends to get involved in the work of coaches. We all have roles. Management has their role and coaches have their roles. Management will have to understand that their role is different from that of coaches."
He further pointed out that the "high degree of professionalism" displayed by members of Reno's management personnel, Owen Cunningham and Wendell Downswell, largely influenced his decision to take the job and added they have an understanding that he will control the team.
"I have made it very clear that management will not interfere with the way I run the team. If not I would not have taken on the job as head coach."
