Former Brikama United and Gambian international player John Bass has been named as Brikama United Female team trainer.
Bass will also get involved with the male team during their morning training sessions at the BoxBar Mini stadium as he continues his coaching career under the tutelage of head coach Modou Lamin Nyassi (Charlie).
The Vice-Chairman of Brikama United, Lamin Debajang gave an impressive reaction to John’s appointment saying he believes John is a good addition to the team.
“We knew John didn’t start his career here, but since day one he has been part of us as one big family. John is committed, humble, and respectful.
When John had his now very well known kidney problem, we told ourselves, it could happen to anyone and he is one of us and so all came up as one and helped him along the way.The experience is there and he can still deliver and so we therefore decided that before going out to bring in someone, why not John? He has every quality of a leader so we didn’t hesitate to select him for that post,” Debajang added.
John, who has so successfully transformed his experience with a kidney problem to set up the John Bass Kidney Foundation, of which he is chairman, spent most of the post Covid-19 hiatus meeting patients’ families, guiding them through the process of becoming a donor, intervening for transplant doctors and patient relationships as well as convincing family members to throw more support to kidney patients. His last engagement last week saw him travel as far as Kanilai.
“The Covid has really hindered the progress of the foundation because we were not able to continue on the health outreach that was going really smooth and effectively. I felt that after all this time, we should have covered grounds. We have made an impact on patients too as some of them had the chance to go for overseas treatment but borders were closed, so it truly dragged us back”, he said.
John is fully involved in football as he is the leader of Daranka Future Academy, and he is also Chairman of Lamin Zone at (WCRFAA) level and serves as the acting president of the Gambia Football Players Association (GFPA).