Round-of-16 action in the Georgetown Football Association (GFA)/Banks Beer Knockout Cup continues this evening with a double-header at the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) Ground from 18:00hrs.
The opening game will see favourites Alpha United facing Charlestown United, before Beacon FC and Flamingo FC lock horns to conclude the night’s encounters.
All eyes will be on Alpha United, the defending Kashif and Shanghai football champions who have been prevented from participating in that tournament because of the ongoing dispute between the GAF and the Guyana Football federation.
Alpha United coach Wayne “Wiggy” Dover said preparations for this tournament have not been ideal.
“To be honest preparations have not been ideal for us with myself and various other key players in the Alpha United team being a part of the “Golden Jaguars” setup during the 2014 World Cup qualifiers over the past few months.
“But, over the past two weeks we have been back together fully with notable players such as Anthony Abrahams, Dwight Peters, Dwayne Jacobs and Ronson Williams and have been engaging in a lot of conditioning and strength training,” Dover explained.
Dover highlighted the fact that the team’s overall aim in this competition was to re-establish itself as the number one football team in the country.
“Obviously any team who is prevented from defending it’s title would be disappointed, but we have moved on from that and are 100% focussed on using this Banks Beer Cup as a platform to re-establish ourselves as the number one team in the country after a long break,” the always self assured sounding Dover said.
Their opponents Charlestown will be backing on the Gravesande brothers, Rocky and Rudolph along with mid-fielder Shawn Anderson in their quest to upset the Alpha side.
In the second game, Flamingo, known colloquially on the local football scene as the “King of Gym” due to their successful exploits over the years in five-a-side Futsal tournaments, will be hoping to translate that form in the 11-a-side arena this evening.
Players such as goal-keeper Lennox Cort, defender Devon Smith, midfielder Seon Porter and striker Dwayne Layne are expected to play important roles.
Beacon in their pursuit for victory over Flamingo will be banking on striker Irvin Millington, mid-fielder Phillip Rowley and the versatile Jerome Richardson to lead their charge at kick off.
