It rained goals at the Guyana Football Federation’s (GFF) Training Facility at Providence as Annai Secondary and Lodge Secondary both secured opening wins in the KFC Goodwill Tournament which kicked off on Saturday afternoon.
The Annai goalscorers
Blessed with brilliant sunshine after a week of inclement weather, an official march past ceremony preceded the football action. There, President of the Guyana Football Federation, Wayne Forde, while charging the secondary school students to remain disciplined throughout the event, also took opportunity to highlight the importance of corporate involvement in the sport.
“I want to ask each and every one of the players that are here to ensure, in their conduct on and off the field, that discipline is the watch word,” Forde urged the student athletes.
“I want to make one last emphasis, and that is on the value of corporate support for football. I never spare any opportunity to remind Guyana that unless we have corporate partners that are coming on board and are helping us to grow and develop the game, our task would be that much more challenging,” the GFF boss went on to state.
Meanwhile, after expressing gratitude to the tournament’s sponsors, Petra’s Co- Director Troy Mendonca, in the same breath, shared the vision that the organizing body has for the tournament years down the road.
Anna were fierce in their approach to Annandale (Jemima Holmes Photo)
“Our dream, our ambition for this tournament, is (that), in a few years to come, we have several teams from within the Caribbean region coming here to match skills with the best teams we have in this country,” Mendonca explained.
When it finally got down to the real business, Annandale Secondary got a taste of their own bitter medicine when Region Nine’s Annai Secondary handed them a 9-1 trashing.
After controlling possession, and registering two goals in the first half, from Junior Rodrigues (7th) and Italo Benjamin (24th), Annai Secondary were fiercer in the second half, netting goal after goal and punishing the Annandale custodian.
Marian Academy mounted a strong defense before Lodge began scoring
Rodrigues and Benjamin each completed their brace, in the 64th and 54th minutes respectively, while Raul Swan (52nd) and Brimley Moses (78th) each contributed a goal.
The Annai captain led from the front in hammering a hat trick (57th, 67th, 69th) against the lacklustre Annandale side. It wasn’t all bad for the East Coast team, as Colin Henriques scored a consolation goal in the 72nd minute.
In the second fixture of the day, Marian Academy held out for a while in the first half of play; but once Lodge Secondary had found the back of the net, it was all over, as they romped to a 6-1 victory.
The Guyoil/Tradewind Tankers champions had looked frustrated with the seemingly impenetrable Marian defense remaining impenetrable in the first 20 minutes of play. But in a turn of events, it was hat-trick day for the winning captain, as Dorwin George netted goals in the 25th and 30th minutes to take some of the pressure off his team.
Earl Grant punctuated George’s scoring with a goal of his own, scored in the 27th minute to push the score to 3-0 by the half.
Retaliating early in the second half, Marian Academy’s Daniel Lowe netted in the 49th; but, to their dismay, this would be Marian’s only goal of the game.
Curt Edwards (61st) and Shemroy Mayers (69th) each contributed a goal, while George completed his hat trick in the 69th for the 6-1 victory.
The KFC Goodwill tournament will continue tomorrow (Monday) at the same Providence venue, when Lodge Secondary takes on Waramadong Secondary, and Shiva boys feature in their first game against Annai Secondary.
