By Duncan Saul
West Demerara unit Raiders were crowned the inaugural RDE Vibes and Sparta Boss ‘King of the Streets’ football tourney champs, upsetting West Front Road-Gold is Money via penalty kicks on Saturday at the Sparta Boss Tarmac in East La Penitence.
With the score locked at nil-all following the end of the normal and extra time intervals, the matchup then headed into the penalty shoot-out realm to decide the outcome.
West Front Road were first up to take mark in the form of Michael Oie who missed his attempt, firing his effort wide of the lower left corner. Raiders quickly capitalised as they scored their first attempt to take a 1-0 lead.
It then went from bad to worse for West Front Road as Hubert Pedro fired his right footed attempt onto the left upright in their second attempt from the distance.
Simply needing to convert their second attempt to seal the unlikely victory, Jermin Beckles made no mistake, placing his right footed effort down the centre of the goal to ignite loud celebrations on the field.
With the win, Raiders will pocket $400,000 and the championship trophy while West Front Road will walk away with $150,000 and the correspondingly accolade.
In the earlier semi-final round, Raiders defeated giants Queen Street Tiger Bay 3-2 on penalty kicks after normal time ended scoreless while West Front Road downed Festival City 2-1 on sudden death kicks after normal time ended 0-0.
In the semi-final playoff fixture, Raiders defeated Broad Street by a 2-1 score line on penalty kicks after normal timed failed to separate the two sides with the score locked at nil-all.
Prior to the semi-final round, in the quarterfinal section, Raiders defeated North East La Penitence 2-0 whilst West Front Road overcame Upsetters 1-0. In the other results, Festival City defeated Bent Street 1-0 while Queen Street downed West Back Road 2-0.
In the opening wild card matchup of the night, Broad Street downed East Bank of Demerara outfit Mocha Ballers by 1-0 score line.
