Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School coach Down­ie Mar­celle is ex­pect­ing an up­hill climb in this year's Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) pre­mier­ship di­vi­sion cam­paign.

The To­ba­go In­ter­col cham­pi­ons have lost nine se­nior team play­ers for the 2026 sea­son, which kicks off at 3.40 pm at Shaw Park Recre­ation Ground on Sat­ur­day. It will be an all-To­ba­go af­fair against new­ly pro­mot­ed Spey­side High School.

De­spite hav­ing to ad­just their 2026 goal to sim­ply sur­vival, Sig­nal Hill coach Down­ie Mar­celle is warn­ing op­po­nents his team will be no pushovers.

"To lose nine play­ers in one sea­son would be dif­fi­cult for any team, any coach. At the end of the day you have to work with what is in front of you and not make ex­cus­es. It will be dif­fi­cult, but it doesn't mean we are go­ing to roll over and let peo­ple just come to Sig­nal Hill. "We're go­ing to fight," he said.

Asked what mes­sage he had for his unit ahead of the der­by, Mar­celle said Spey­side was not an un­fa­mil­iar op­po­nent.

"You want the play­ers to be­lieve in them­selves and the abil­i­ty God would have giv­en to them.

"It's a der­by, it's a ri­val­ry match, it's two To­ba­go schools. There's one way I know how to play—which is to at­tack. Goals win match­es, and we en­cour­age the boys to be on the front foot. It is go­ing to be an at­tack from minute one."

Mean­while, Spey­side is qui­et­ly con­fi­dent of pick­ing up three points, af­ter their Cham­pi­onship team pushed Sig­nal Hill to the brink in a thrilling 4-3 To­ba­go In­ter­col fi­nal last year. While Sig­nal Hill's squad has been weak­ened, Spey­side bol­stered theirs with star play­er Riquelme Phillips re­turn­ing home. The tal­ent­ed for­ward helped Na­pari­ma Col­lege to an SS­FL tre­ble in 2025 and is ex­pect­ed to play an in­te­gral role in the Man­tas cam­paign.

Spey­side tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor Ker­ry Lynch said Phillips has al­ready rein­te­grat­ed in­to the squad and demon­strat­ed great lead­er­ship.

"He has been show­ing pas­sion, a ded­i­ca­tion—even at school and every­thing. His aca­d­e­mics are para­mount. He in­tends to re­al­ly lead from the front, even to the group of per­sons who may be in­ex­pe­ri­enced," Lynch said.

Spey­side coach Alex Si­mon said Pre­mier­ship lev­el re­quires play­ers to be "ful­ly pre­pared, men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly."

Asked whether stay­ing up among the elites was the ob­jec­tive, Si­mon replied, "We will be com­pet­ing. We are not just go­ing to be show­ing up; we will be play­ing."

On the now re­scind­ed de­ci­sion by the SS­FL ex­ec­u­tive last month to ex­clude To­ba­go teams from the pre­mier­ship ow­ing to fi­nan­cial con­straints, Si­mon said every­one was re­lieved to see good sense pre­vail.

"The guys were dis­ap­point­ed. They were very dis­ap­point­ed. Thank God the peo­ple stepped in and made it pos­si­ble. They would have played and won the Cham­pi­onship, then to be told they can't play (pre­mier­ship), they were dis­ap­point­ed—but now they are ready and ex­cit­ed."

To­day’s match ups

Boys’ Pre­mier Di­vi­sion (Round 14)

Spey­side Sec­ondary vs Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary, Shaw Park Sport­ing Com­plex, 3.40 pm