Football provides healing, pathway for Ronaldo Webster

FOOTBALL HAS always provided a way for Ronaldo Webster.

And, now that he has landed a contract in Europe, the talented Jamaican midfielder is working overtime in furtherance of his goals.

Earlier this month, the Cavalier Soccer Club Premier League champion signed with North Macedonia First League club Bregalnica Stip.

Webster is a former national Under-17 player who also captained the Jamaica Under-23s in the just-concluded Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador, where he scored in Jamaica’s group stage 1-1 draw against Guatemala. He is also a member of the senior Reggae Boyz team and was on the recent Asian tour in Qatar where they played against the hosts Morocco and Ghana.

Currently, the six-foot-two, two-footed attacking player is undergoing preparation for the upcoming league start and notes that he is putting out his all to be fit and ready for the impending challenges of a season that will begin in close to a week, and other challenges that lie beyond.

“My aspiration is to win the title with the club and go to a bigger club. My coach (Ilco Gjorgioski) is telling me that, if I do good this season, I could make it to a bigger club. They’re one of the clubs over here that sell a lot of young players,” Webster admitted of Bregalnica’s modus operandi.

“This club is young, it’s average age is 24-25. I just want to climb the ladder and go up and up.”

The opportunity, Webster said, is a dream come true and he is even more appreciative as his new teammates have taken a liking to his attributes.

“I feel delighted, I feel good because I’ve been dreaming about getting out and playing in Europe. I really feel good about it. In training, my teammates love me already. They say I have quick feet. I am quick and the weather is just like in Jamaica, so I won’t have a problem.”

Webster’s football history is rich, beginning at Unity Primary, and then Petersfield High in Westmoreland where he stormed into the daCosta Cup outfit from as early as the eighth grade. His exploits attracted the attention of St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS), where he smashed in 24 goals one season while in fifth form.

In the middle of this, tragedy struck, not once but twice, as two of his beloved brothers died in separate incidents in Westmoreland. One of them, Richard Webster, crashed into a tree while riding his motorcycle and succumbed to injuries at hospital in early January 2019.

Those incidents took a significant toll on the youngster.

On each occasion, however, he rebounded strongly, with the help of his family and those around him in football.

The first incident occurred around the time of the STETHS daCosta Cup campaign and joining Cavalier.

FIRST INCIDENT

“I was just about to start playing for Cavalier … when I was in Kingston and I heard. I got stuff for him and had shopped for him. I didn’t even get a chance to give him,” he admitted about having just returned home with gifts from a football trip.

“All of that took a toll on me. I had to go home. I went back into a place where I didn’t want to go. I took time off from school then. I was just mad with this world, I wasn’t talking with anybody, I was done. But football was the one thing always bringing me back,” said Webster.

“I took a month off and came back to play for Cavalier.”

When his second brother lost his life, Webster had been in transition from STETHS to Cavalier, at the influence of the club’s technical director, Rudolph Speid, who travelled from Kingston to meet him at his home.

The deaths affected the youngster so badly that Webster stopped going to school. Along with family members, Webster made special mention of STETHS principal Keith Wellington, coach Omar Wedderburn and members of the daCosta Cup team, for providing strong support in that difficult period.

With the passing of his second brother, family, Ryan Foster through Wolmer’s Boys’ School and Cavalier, through Speid, other members of the coaching staff and players, provided the base of support that Webster leaned on.

Without practice, he would later sit his Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) exams, intent on fulfilling the itinerary. Webster, however, was shocked to learn though, when his mother Khadine Mullings called, informing that he “had gotten his subjects”.

He passed five subjects – English Language, Physical Education, Integrated Science, Principles of Business and Information Technology.

“I was shocked because I wasn’t planning to go to any school because I didn’t study, I wasn’t confident of getting even one subject,” he said.

A number of schools, he said, approached him to join their sixth form programme, but he chose Wolmer’s Boys’ in Kingston.

“Before I left Jamaica, before the CXC results, Mr Ryan Foster had reached out to me and from there we’ve had a connection,” he said.

“I believe in loyalty and he represented that. I went to Wolmer’s, not knowing that I would’ve gotten my subjects. When everybody heard that I got my subjects, all the top schools were asking me to come, but I had promised Mr Foster that I’d come to Wolmer’s,” Webster explained. “I played that season for Wolmer’s and got the Manning Cup’s leading goalscorer (26 goals) … and I didn’t participate in the first round.

“From there and then, Mr Foster has been guiding me in everything, football and otherwise. He has been guiding me. If I got a call from an agent overseas, he would offer advice and guide me,” he added.

“I then went straight into the Premier League and won a Premier League final at Cavalier. We went to back-to-back finals under Mr Speid’s hands. He pushed us, telling us that overseas is the aim. I want to give a big shout out to Mr Speid and the coaching staff at Cavalier because they’re doing a wonderful job with the youth programme.”