Page 332 - They Also Served

operation, and Barnes was selected as the commander. The coup was duly crushed, Grenada was restored to democracy, and he was described as ‘an inspired leader who was an officer and a gentleman’. Ken Barnes retired from the army in 1989.
A talented sportsman who had captained the Jamaican football team, he had served as the army sports officer and chairman of the JDF Sports Board. It was, therefore, no surprise that he was selected to manage the national football team. However, such was his reputation as an administrator that his services were much in demand, and he was also president of the Swimming Association of Jamaica and the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control. However, perhaps his best-known contribution to Jamaican sport came when he was approached to set up a national bobsleigh team. Throwing his energy into the project and utilising the renowned sprinting ability of his countrymen, he built a team of military personnel. The laid-back attitude of the squad and the incongruity of a Caribbean island competing in winter sports brought them legions of admirers. The team finished a highly creditable 14th in the Calgary 1988 Winter Olympics and inspired the hit film Cool Runnings.
In 1963, after the birth of two daughters, the Barnes’s third child was born. His wife, Jeanne, placed a tiny football in the cot, hoping that the baby would become the son his father had always wanted. It is ironic that a man who was one of his country’s leading sportsmen, an administrator in multiple sports, who led the forces of several nations in a successful military operation and inspired a hugely popular film should be remembered primarily for being the father of an even-better-known son. Fortunately, Ken Barnes lived long enough to witness his son John’s 79-match England career and later follow in his father’s footsteps as manager of the Jamaica football team. Colonel Ken Barnes died on 20th February 2009.
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