Anyone who has ever sat down with Andrew Bascome to talk about football, but for a mere 15 minutes, should realise that talk about his "retirement" as a coach is an absolute nonsense.

Such a passion for the game cannot be quelled at the tender age of 38, despite a gradual decline in local standards and commitment since Bascome's halcyon days as an imaginative and entertaining, albeit fragile, midfield player.

We will never know what might have become of his unrivalled skills: a scything tackle by Allan Philpott, the Goetxetchea of the Eighties - pundits over here will say, the Duscher of the new millennium - put paid to that.

But the premature end of his playing career paved the way for perhaps what he was destined to do - coach.

After two highly successful seasons at Dandy Town, those of cynical persuasion, namely me, have to ask the question: Why now, Drew?

George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees, went through an extraordinary period not so long ago as a master manipulator of the media.

Whenever he planned to fire a manager, the Boss waited until the eve of the World Series to steal the thunder from the finalists. Andrew Bascome did quite the same here, but the difference was that his team was in the FA Cup Final.

So, what gives? I wondered that when the serialisation of Andrew Bascome: I'm retired began in The Royal Gazette last month. Explanations of "having done it all", "a change in attitudes among players", and "family commitments" were palatable to the layman, but wore thin with me.

Don't get me wrong; I am a huge fan of Andrew Bascome, and the Bascomes, in particular, but there is far more to this than meets the eye.

Bascome allowed the penny to drop this week when, in the latest excerpt of the serialisation, he told The Gazette's Colin Thompson "I was never guaranteed all the benefits other coaches received for being successful." Now then. Therein lies the source of the great man's winter of discontent.

So the retirement proclamation was not meant to upstage the FA Cup Final after all, but instead came at about the same period that the Bermuda Football Association was due to unveil its director of youth development.

The coaching careers of Kenny Thompson and Andrew Bascome have taken similar paths, which guided them away from the style that is stereotypical of all but the elite of English football - the former chose Holland and "Total Football", while the latter went south to Brazil and "The Beautiful Game".

Both returned to enjoy success, most notably with North Village, where Thompson has planted the seeds for the Red Devils to dominate the local game and where Bascome touched the heights as both a player and coach.

But the age of reverence for Bascome changed when he made the conversion to Rastafarianism.

That he was the second in the clan to do so, Herbie was the first, is significant.

While we may never know whether `the chicken or the egg' came first, I stand confident in my belief that, when the dreadlocks movement spread in Bermuda in the late Seventies, it was the hairstyle and wanton marijuana-smoking that came first with religion a distant second.

In the sporting world, the Herbie Bascomes and Paul Perinchiefs were seen as rebels, and so were many others, but the conversion of Andrew Bascome in the mid-Eighties was a coup of the highest order and brought with it a much-coveted validity.

This validity was countered by a shudder from the decision-makers within the Bermuda Football Association, and even North Village, and when Bascome made the ill-fated comment to the media that his religion mandates that he partakes of marijuana, a drug that is illegal in most of the world, including Jamaica where Rastafarianism was inspired by the philosophy of Marcus Garvey, he put a noose around his neck that tightens whenever he or his many supporters entertain a call to national service.

Thompson, whose chief indiscretion was an unwillingness in the last eight years of his playing career to commit more than one season to either Somerset Eagles, Somerset Trojans, Dandy Town or North Village - have I missed anyone? - has found his niche as a coach, and more significantly as a teacher of young people. He is undeniably the future and Bascome, when, not if, he ultimately returns, will have to pander to him.

I can only presume that when Bascome made the comment, "Was it because of my dreadlocks? I am a Rastaman and I will always be that", he made a veiled attempt to decry the unwritten BFA edict to steer clear of him when promotions went to Mark Trott, Dennis Brown, Jack Castle, Josef Gooden, et al, because he has held every meaningful club position in local football, except at PHC, who have an in-house policy.

I am loathe to chastise Bascome for his religious beliefs and similarly to speculate where he might have taken Bermuda football at the international level, but whenever someone tries to browbeat me with the association of dreadlocks and illicit drugs to Rastafarianism, I think of two Jamaican singers - Morgan Heritage and Yellowman.

The former sang the popular tune "Don't Haffi Dread", which goes "You don't haffi (have to be) dread to be Rasta. This is not a dreadlocks thing, divine conception of the heart ."

Yellowman is a Rasta, who, more succinctly but no less significantly, does not smoke marijuana, ganja, weed, herb, chronic, sensimillia or any other codename that is attached to an illegal substance, which for importation in Malaysia, among other countries, comes with the death penalty.

Dexter E Smith, London, England