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Butler taking inspiration from Cavalier - Vere technical director says youthful aggregation will learn from mistakes in 2025 JPL
April 08, 2025
Technical director of Vere Phoenix United Craig Butler has taken inspiration from his nemesis, Rudolph Speid, of Cavalier, as his team faces almost certain relegation from the Jamaica Premier League (JPL).
With only four games remaining in the regular season, the Clarendon team is presently on 23 points, 10 points away from safety, and another defeat would condemn the club to Tier II football next term.
Nevertheless, Butler, in his post match interview after their 3-1 defeat to Cavalier on Sunday, pointed to how the defending champions recovered from being relegated from the league in 2016 before returning to win it four seasons later (2021), as an indication that they intend to come back stronger if demoted.
"If you look at Cavalier's trajectory, they came up, they went down, they came back up again and then they won.
"We have very talented players, albeit very young players and the transitional players, the seniors who are here are really there to guide them and prepare the next ones behind them for the next step," he said.
Butler admitted that inexperience at the Premier League level was a major factor in their failings thus far, but that they will learn the lessons and get stronger.
"There is a saying, 'A wise man learns from his mistakes, and a wiser man learns from the mistakes of others'. We are learning from our mistakes and I am sure the players coming up now will also learn from those mistakes.
"There is no bad in life. Just learning. And you learn and grow. More than half of the team is coming out of Manning Cup. In order to win you have to learn and taste defeat," Butler said.
"I think a lot of it has to do with the youth in the team and their maturity and the lessons that they need to learn. They need to feel this pain and once they feel this pain they will grow from it and become better players," he stated.
Despite their small window of hope for survival, Butler said they will continue to give it all they've got, as their way of honouring the community and fans.
"I am confident we can survive the drop. I didn't raise these boys to be quitters. And I literally raised them since pre-teens," he noted.
"So we are not going to give up. It's not in our DNA. We are going to go out and fight for every game. We've faced the hardest teams already, so we just have to push through and try and get those points.
"They say to pray for help. But I believe the Lord helps those who help themselves. We have to go out on the battlefield, put on our armour. There are a lot of people with injuries, we will patch them up and go out and fight, and maybe God will bless us or maybe we will have to learn from it and grow," he said.
Continuing, Butler stated: "We want to honour the community of Vere and keep them up at least. That's the most important thing. I don't like when people put their faith in me and I let them down. I don't sleep well at nights. So to the people of Vere, we are doing our best and we will try to stay up for you."
