Guyana’s beach footballers star in giant US tourney

Virginia, USA – Guyanese ball weaver Jarmane Grandison put on a surreal sand soccer show to pop eyes and hearts at last weekend’s 19th North American Sand Soccer Championships in Virginia Beach, USA. But, his spirited performance was in vain for his team’s championship chances at the June 8-10 tourney.
By the time Grandison and his Bago Sports BFC teammates made another come-from-behind sortie, the effort was too late to pip Team Canada for a spot in the semis and further. However, Bago Sports’ combination of players from Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago was the epithet of Caribbean concord, a fact not lost on the fans’ fondness of their thrilling play and their labeling of Grandison as a ‘bionic man’.
Grandison and compatriot Keon Sears were invited to play for the Tobago-based club in the tourney that drew 900 teams in boys, girls, college, military, women, men and coed games. “Jarmane and Keon are two of our better players and showing their skills here is a great opportunity to advance our local program,” said Guyana Beach Football Association (GBFA) executive Rollin Tappin, who accompanied the players.
Slotted in Group B of the 10-team ProAm Men’s Open Division, Bago Sports needed a win in their final preliminary match last Saturday, but the better coached and more experienced Canadians held their nerves for a 4-3 win in the most exhilarating game of the tourney.
Grandison, a defender, came into the game buoyed by his goal from a previous match, and his retort to a challenge he made with the waning Sears that: ‘for every goal he (Grandison) stops, Sears would score a double on opponents’. “I come here to win this thing, not on sight-seeing,” he had proclaimed earlier in the day. It was his clear reference a US$12000 top prize plus scouting and tourney-invite offers, against enjoying the picturesque view of 22 city blocks of prime beach and boardwalk environs populated by thousands of  beachwear-clad bodies.
At the game’s first break, Team Canada’s led by 3-nil, before Bago Sports reacted to go in front with a 3-peat of goals. Then, the burlier Canadians equalized and regained the lead in a flash. With time ticking, Grandison, as if by osmosis, revved his team with a show of superhuman intensity hoping to reverse the signs of the inevitable. The diminutive Lindener was literally all over the hot, wool-like sand in defense and attack with plays after plays that defied tiredness and gravity much to the pleasure of fans and chagrin of opponents.
It was unfortunate that some calls went against them, including a penalty-inducing foul on Grandison. Despite a late series of repetitive corner kicks, Bago Sports could not put the leather sphere into the old onion bag, again.
The loss meant a consolation game for the Caribbean side on the final day where Montco Assurri – an Italian-themed Pennsylvania club – pushed them to 6th position in the tourney with a 3-2 score.
Defending champs Florida Beach Soccer took the  crown, with runners-up spots going to Miami Mapau (Florida), Team Canada and So Cal BFC (California) in sequence. Earlier in the tourney, the Caribbean team won two of their three games. They beat HRSC Elite (Virginia) 4-3, then loss to So Cal by a 3-1 margin on Friday. Then next day, they bounced back to edge another state side, Massage Envy FC, by 3 goals to 2, before losing to Canada.
The tourney was touted as ‘the globe’s premier single-weekend beach soccer festival’, and this year’s event featured over 10,000 returning ‘veterans’ and newcomers who rocked the oceanfront over a stretch of a mile and a half. Teams from 20 US states and as far away as Africa, Germany , Brazil , Norway , Canada and the Caribbean competed in 80 divisions on pitches in a scenic soccer setting with sand, sun and surf in the mix.
Though Grandison effectively siphoned the pre-tourney showmanship expectations from Sears, he shared some spotlight with former junior Golden Jaguars striker Kevin Beaton. The New York-based Beaton, who was drafted into the team from its third match, also sparkled with a trio of goals in two games.
“We’d have liked better results here, but we still created an impact and we’ve built new relationships that we hope will augur well for the future of Guyana’s beach football,” Tappin contended. “This whole experience in Virginia is one of ‘fancy shock’; we were surprised, but well sensitized to put our names out there.”
Those names would certainly include Grandison’s. If not for the moniker he had been newly baptized with in the USA, then it would be for the justified search by some young fans to locate the Guyanese beach football star in the cosmic festival of football frivolity. And, what for, Grandison’s autograph on their soccer balls.