Two years ago, the only name on the tongues of Jamaican football fans was Kemmar Daley. That was when he was the talisman behind a resurgent Jamaica College team who were seeking to break one of the longest losing streaks in the history of Jamaican high school sport. The Hope Road based school did not win that year but all will remember the exploits of Daley with endorsements as “the future of football” ringing in from all over.

Two years on and the now twenty-year-old striker/attacking midfielder is facing a new challenge. He is now the captain of one of the promoted teams in the Digicel Premier League, Meadhaven United and has to deal with them being rooted at the bottom of the table and on top of all that he still has to deal with the implications of the sudden loss of his coach and mentor, David “Wagga” Hunt last year.

It is a task that he is up for however; as he believes that as his coach would have wanted they must rise above the challenges.

“It’s kind of challenging for us as a new team. It’s our first year and it’s a different level of football than before.” Daley said when asked about coping with life in the Digicel Premier League.

Speaking of his coach he affirmed: “Today we honoured him with a memorial but the match didn’t turn out as we wanted it to. We just have to take this league one day at a time and we will get there.”

From humble beginnings, Daley does realize the important role football has played in this life. “It’s a thing from birth. The talent runs in the family, but it’s about trying to survive and making it,” he mused. “I watch a lot of football and I know that there is talent all over the world and in Jamaica, especially in the ghetto. But we have to try to make it better for our family.”

Knowing this, Daley sees the sky as the limit and looks to God as the arbiter of his future: “I want to go as far as possible but I am gong to leave everything to the Almighty.”