Empire are on a mission in this year’s Barbados Football Association Division One competition.
Having made a solid start to the campaign, the Bank Hall-based unit currently sits on the top of the point standings.
In their most recent game on Wednesday, Empire hammered Barbados Soccer Academy 5-0.
Speaking to Barbados TODAY following that result, manager Captain Al Walcott attributed the team’s early success to hard work behind the scenes.
“Basically, the secret of success is the consistency in the training of the players. We’re trying to work on a systematic game that we can apply regardless of the conditions.
“Last season we recognised that we had a problem in front of goal. We weren’t scoring enough goals and we basically acquired some more attacking players in an effort to resolve that issue. It seems to be paying off for this season so far,” Walcott said.
He said the team’s newfound attacking drive has come from a variety of sources.
“So there’s Romario Denny; he’s from St Vincent, and we also have Arantes Lawrence, who most recently played for Wales in the Premier League. He decided as he plays now for Empire Masters that he would help out and try to bring the young ones along,” Walcott explained.
“There’s also Brino da Silva from Brazil, who plays at left back, but he also has a strong attacking drive, along with Kevron Durrant. These are the attacking players we recruited, and so far it seems to be paying off as we progress.”
Such is the quality of the current squad, that Walcott said selecting the best starting 11 for each game is proving to be a challenge.
“I would say this, the 11 is a difficult 11 to pick, and then also the subs because we have a good roster, I would say. Then the training sessions are such that there’s a mandatory session in preparation and when we have that session, we have as many as 23 players at practice as well. So, yes, choosing that 11 and the subs is a difficult one, but that’s a good place to be in for any club,” he said.
Despite being in the top three for the majority of the season, Walcott says promotion back to the Premier League remains the ultimate goal. Last season St Andrew Lions and Bagatelle were the two teams to be promoted, while Deacons and Silver Sands were demoted from the premiership.
“Yes, promotion to the Premier League is the ultimate goal. We missed out last season, despite having a very low number of goals conceded, but I think we drew at least six games, which caused us some problems.
“So this year our goal is still to get back to the Premier League, and we’re going to work on that,” Walcott said.
