By Iva Wharton
Talks of another protest in the Digicel School’s football tournament currently underway countrywide was abandoned after Guyana Industrial Training Centre (GITC) team was knocked out of the competition by the New Campbellville Secondary yesterday at the Georgetown Football Club (GFC) Ground, Bourda.
Reports were that the goalkeeper for GITC was over the stipulated age.
But in a penalty shootout, New Campbellville Secondary defeated GITC 4-2 after the match had ended in a 1-1 draw at the end of regulation time. The lone goal scorer for Campbellville was goalkeeper Amanike Forde in the 44th minute after New Campbellville Secondary won a free kick and allowed Forde to do the hounours. Akeem Holder
scored for GITC in the 52nd minute.
Manager of the New Campbellville Secondary School, T. Durga, in an invited comment, said that he expected his team to win, but not in such a dramatic fashion.
“Our team’s performance was excellent in the sense that we scored the first goal and then our opponents equalized. Both teams played good football but the better team won because I think it is the better goalie that defended us and game us the upper hand,” he declared.
According to Durga he never expected the game to go down to penalty kicks.
“But a few mistakes earlier we did not capitalize on the chances for goals and hence it ended in penalty,” he said.
Durga added that he was not sure when the next match would be or which side his team will be facing but said that his players need to stick to the game plan and should not deviate from it.
“Play the football that we know to play, which is very competitively football,” was his maxim.
He said that this current crop of players have been together for more than two years competing at the under-15 level and now at the under-18 level.
Durga added that they are currently trying to rebuild the school through sports which according to him is bearing fruits.
“This school has been a school of great potential with academics and sports, but recently we had a little break down due to indiscipline and hence we use the sports programme to rehabilitate the students. So now we have more discipline and we have noticed that the students are performing more in terms of their academics, discipline and their whole social life so to speak,” he ended.
