St Vincent and the Grenadines

 Huggins playing for St Vincent & the Grenadines in 2004

Okay, so St Vincent & the Grenadines is (are?) a small group of islands in the southern part of the Caribbean known as the Lesser Antilles with a population a similar size to Peterborough. They gained independence from the UK in 1979, but didn' joined FIFA untill 1988. I do love caribbean namesTheir Prime Minister is called Ralph and their national team includes Cornelius, Wendall, Emerald, Reginald, and confusingly 'Kenyan' who is not a Kenyan, he is of course Vincentian.

I've tried to find a famous Vincentian, bu am really struggling. The best that I can come up with is Kevin Lyttle who released this tune in 2004. Second in my list is Tony Nero, the father of one of my students, he's an artist based in Peterborough who specialises in portraits of Black heroes. Finally Rodney Jack, the former Torquy United an Crewe Alexandra player.

The national team itself hasn't exactly set the footballing world on fire, but nor should we expect it to given its population of just 120,000. It has however achieved a respectable 73rd in the FIFA world rankings as recently as October 2007 following their appearance in the final round of the Caribbean Cup, a competition that they were runners up for in 1995. Back on the islands the national team are known as the Vincy Heat.

St Vincent and the Grenadines - Home - 2004

I really thought that thi shirt wuld be a little bit easier to find. They have plenty of links wth the UK, and are even advertising an e-shop on the national association website.

I eventually found this shirt, signed by theafore mentioned Rodney Jack on eBay. I somehow manged to get this for a bargain £42.