Santos Football Club ad-vanced to the next round while the Sunburst Camptown and Pouderoyen Football Clubs encounter ended in a controversy when action in the Alpha United Carifesta 2008 organized $2.2 million football extravaganza continued at the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) Thursday night.
In the first encounter of the night’s double header, Santos had a hard fought 2-1 victory over Linden’s Silver Shattas when Asagai Clarke (25th) and Seon Mc Kenzie (31st) found the back of the net to give them a 2-nil lead at lemon time.
After the break, the mining town team forced the initiative against their city counterparts who resorted to playing chase-the- ball as they played like a team in a desperate search for goals, even failing to string together any amount of passes to the dismay of those gathered.
Silver Shattas continued to attack their opponent’s goal and were rewarded with a penalty following a handled ball in the area. The resulting kick was converted by Alester Johnson in the 64th minute, and even though they made several raids on their opponent’s goal in search of the equalizer, the Santos’ defence led by the hard working Jermaine Fraser stood strong to the task and when the final whistle went, Silver Shattas left the field a dejected looking bunch while a jubilant looking Santos unit advanced.
In the feature game of the night, it was a seesaw battle as both teams searched for the initiative and even though the Pouderoyen defence led by Darius Garraway, Steve Felix and Ulric Griffith were equal to the task, Camptown should have gone ahead in the 15th minute, but Reshawn Sandiford’s shot went high over the bar and onto Regent Street.
Dexter Mollyneaux, Troy Prescod, Marvin Joseph and at times Sherwin Cadogan who was overlapping from the defence tried to break down the barriers set up by the West Bank Demerara team, but their efforts were in vain as they either sent their shot wide or saw Marvin Griffith effect a save.
At half time, the score line was untroubled and when play resumed in the second half with Camptown attacking the North Road end goal, the pace was just as hot as it was in the first half with both teams looking to seize the initiative, forcing both custodians to effect saves.
After seeing Griffith effect a brilliant save from a Cadogan drive from just outside the penalty box, Clement Browne had the opportunity to send his team into the lead after receiving a pass from former national midfielder Ron Austin, but his shot was way off mark even as Camptown’s defence was out of the picture.
In the 70th minute, Prescod who was having a wonderful night in the field for his team, forced Griffith to pull off a save after he sent a powerful free kick shot to the goal area following an infringement committed at the right hand side of the box.
Meanwhile, ten minutes later pandemonium broke loose at the GFC ground after referee Roy Mc Arthur awarded a penalty to the George-town Football Associ-ation (GFA) Premiere League leaders.
Cadogan was on one of his overlapping runs from the defensive area in Camptown’s half of the field and after rounding his marker Garland Lewis, he was tripped by the latter right inside the penalty area.
As the referee, who was not far from the scene of the act rushed in and pointed to the penalty area, he was surrounded by members of the Pouderoyen team both on and off the field, who apparently told their custodian not to take the goal for the resulting penalty kick.
The game was halted for some 10 minutes and with Pouderoyen showing no signs of rescinding on their decision, the referee blew the game off leaving the tournament organizers to come up with a decision on whether Camptown should advance to the next round or order the game to be replayed.
