BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Dec. 16, 2021– Last week Tuesday, December 7, legendary Belize City football striker of the 1970s-80s, Ricky Gongora called and requested if we could locate from the Amandala files a picture from the 1979-80 Belize City season where he had received something in the neighborhood of 7 trophies, including MVP, Most Goals, Best Forward, 1st Place Knockout, Best Defensive Player, 2nd Place Regular Season, and probably Marathon Champion. Unfortunately, we came up empty in our search through two bound folders of old Amandala newspapers, from which some weekly issues were apparently missing. That was before the age of internet, so hopefully the particular issue can be found at the Government archives in Belmopan, where copies of all newspapers are kept.

The purpose of Ricky’s request, as he explained, was for the occasion of his being inducted into the Belizean American Football Association’s Hall of Fame at a small ceremony in Brooklyn, New York, where Ricky was visiting due to the passing of his sister, Rosita Reneau Gongora.

We expressed our condolences to Ricky on his sister’s passing; and Ricky also asked us to extend his condolences to the family of recently departed 1970s Belize basketball great, Daniel “Danny” Meighan.

President of the New York based Belizean American Football Hall of Fame Committee, Wellington Ramos, explained in a short ceremony on Saturday, December 11, that they had inducted a list of 165 legendary Belizean players, officials, sponsors and fans who had contributed greatly to the sport of football, in a ceremony held back in 2017, but some inductees were unavoidably absent. Ricky’s recent visit afforded the opportunity for him to personally receive his letter of induction – Citation Award, a Certificate of Induction, and a Plaque with the engraved name of Enrique “Ricky” Gongora as a Member of the Belizean American Football Hall of Fame.

Congratulations to Ricky and to the effort of the Belizean American Football Association in recognizing our great footballers of the past.

Interestingly, our search for Ricky’s picture through old copies of Amandala has unearthed a quite a few treasures. We hope to share with readers a few football articles/pictures which give a snapshot of some great Belize City strikers and the football climate back around 1979-80.