Islamiya win Royceton Gomes Memorial Football Cup

The final of the Royceton Gomes Memorial Football Cup was played before a record crowd at the St. Paul’s ‘A’ Ground with even the weather god’s holding back the rain. Both St. Paul’s and Islamiya fielded each very well. Most of the time the teams were evenly balanced and the match hung on a knife-edge. In the penalty shoot out that followed Islamiya won 6-4.

Eventually in the 14th minute, this pressure affected the Islamiya goalkeeper, who stepped backwards into his own goal to stop a long shot from Roxon Swamy . St. Paul’s controlled the game through some good combined moves and well planned strategy which the Islamiya boys were able to thwart only by individual brilliance of play.

Undeterred, the Islamiya boys fought back bravely and earned a well coordinated goal just before half time goal by Wasi Gheewale in the 30th minute.

In the second, the Paulites once again mounted pressure on Islamiya goal, but lacked direction. The weakness of St. Paul’s was capitalized upon by Islamiya who fought back valiantly and took the match into extra time, when Islamiya scored a goal within the first minute, with Wasi Gheewale scoring a brilliant goal. Not to be disheartened, the Paulites kept their cool and countered with a sizzling goal by Chetan Kadokar. 66th minute.

After the second extra time, the game went into the penalty shoot-out phase, which Islamiya School won with more accurate shooting.

Both teams played exceptionally well to treat all to an exciting game of football. In the end, it was football that won.

The Chief Guest, Ms. Priyanka Mary Francis who distributed the prizes, said that in such a game, even participating is a great honoured and expressed the wish to witness more such matches next year.

Special prizes were awarded to

best player : Dinesh Mannurkar (Beynon Smith)

best goal keeper : Parth Kolumbuskar (Dynan Prabhodan)

highest scorer : Abuzaar Bhisti (Islamiya School)