Kwesi Mugisa, Staff Reporter

FORMER NATIONAL coach and highly regarded schoolboy football coaching legend George Thompson died en route to the University Hospital yesterday morning following a prolonged battle with illness.

Thompson was 74.

The coach was well known for his achievements with Kingston College (KC) at the Manning Cup level, which saw him not only achieve the rare feat of capturing the schoolboy football triple crown - the Manning Cup, Olivier Shield and Walker Cup - but also set a standard yet to be equalled by doing it in consecutive years, 1964 and '65. After a brief absence, Thompson returned to win the triple crown again with KC in the 1975 season.

"He was the type of coach that the players would really just give their all for; you would do anything he asked," Neville Oxford, a former national player who played for Thompson during the '64-'65 seasons, told The Gleaner yesterday.

"He always inspired you to do your best, to perform to the best of your ability," Oxford said.

"He didn't just care about you on the field, but off the field as well. There were many occasions I remember him using his own money to give players bus fare. He thought about your well being," he said.

"He is truly one of the nation's unsung heroes in our football history and I don't think he has got enough credit."

Oxford, along with the likes of Trevor Harris, Tony Keyes, Franklin Morant and Lloyd McLean, were considered part of one of the greatest schoolboy football teams of all-time which went unbeaten in the '64 and '65 seasons.

However, 'George T's' achievements were not limited to the pitches of local high schools. In 1964, Thompson, who was born in Colombia to Jamaican parents, achieved another remarkable feat when he led an all-star schoolboy team to a draw with a well-respected Brazilian Under-23 side. In addition, Thompson, a founding member of the Gibson Relays, also had successful stints with local football outfits Arnett Gardens and the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF).

The head of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), Captain Horace Burrell, while sending condolences on behalf of the organisation yesterday, praised Thompson for his invaluable contribution to the sport.

"George Thompson will remain an icon of monumental proportions in the nation's football history. His place in the Hall of Fame in the sport is very well secured. May his soul rest in peace and life perpetual shine upon him," Burrell wrote in a press release issued to the media yesterday.