Banks Beer Cup semi-final action on tonight at GFC … Alpha face Tigers, GDF meet Pele

FOLLOWING their hard-fought semi-final victories last Thursday and Friday, the four semi-finalists for this year’s fourth annual Georgetown Football Association-organised Banks DIH’s Banks Beer Cup were decided and will go into action tonight at the Georgetown Football Club ground.

National champions Alpha ‘The Hammer’ United will go head-to-head with Western Tigers in one matchup, while giant-killers Guyana Defence Force and the Rawle ‘Overseas’ Jones-coached Pele Football Club will meet in the other, with the winners clashing in the final at the Guyana National Stadium on New Year’s Day for the $3M first-place purse.
On Christmas night’s action, Alpha met and were forced to work hard to overcome a hardworking Georgetown Football Club 3-0, with Dwight Peters (49th), Sheldon Holder (76th) and Dwain Jacobs (83rd) finding the back of the net for Alpha.
In the second game of the night’s double-header, Pele made three rebounds in a gruelling encounter with Riddim Squad, doing so after losing the services of Okenny Fraser and Konata Mannings who were both issued with marching orders from the referee and later after their opponents equalised, to claim a 3-2 victory.
That contest started with Amos Ramsey of Riddim Squad hitting the last post with Pele custodian Shawn Johnson in no man’s land on the first post, in the fifth minute and following several raids on their opponents’ goal area, it was Omallo Williams of Pele who scored the opening goal of the contest in the 36th minute.
Following a 1-0 lead at halftime, Williams doubled his and Pele’s goals in the 61st minute, when Fraser latched onto a well-weighted pass on the right side deep in Riddim Squad’s third and squared the ball to an unmarked Williams who calmly placed same into the back of the net.
The contest became very physical after that goal, resulting in both Fraser and Mannings being given second bookable offences, hence the automatic red cards, with Riddim Squad scoring their first goal in the 69th minute through Sheldon Hope and 10 minutes later the equaliser off the boot of Lyliton Ramsey who had muffed several goal-scoring opportunities earlier.
But some fantastic footwork from Calvin Shepherd, who picked up the ball in his midfield area and, like Diego Maradona did in the 1986 World Cup encounter, worked his way deep into Riddim Squad’s half with ease, going through their defence like a hot knife through butter.
And when many felt he would have finished the act, unselfishly, he gave Deon Alfred a gem of a pass. The diminutive striker controlled the ball, turned safely and drilled his shot low to the right of the Riddim Squad custodian to give Pele the go-ahead goal in the 81st minute.
The resulting goal was the final nail in the coffin of Riddim Squad as a nine-man Pele unit played defensive football for the remaining nine minutes and even for the added-on six minutes, to come away with the win.
Last Friday night at the same venue, Western Tigers resisted arrest and later filed a complaint of non-resistance on Police, coming away with a 7-0 win.
Phillip Rowley opened the scoring for the winners as he found the back of the net in the 25th minute, Joshua Britton open his account four minutes later and the lead ballooned to 3-0, as Britton completed his double with a 38th-minute conversion.
Britton wasted little or not time in completing his hat-trick, compliments of a 50th-minute effort to make it 4-0 before Randolph Wagner got into the scoring act and he found the back of the net in the 64th minute to hand the Tigers a 5-0 cushion.
It then became 6-0 six minutes later, thanks to Andre Webber’s goal, with the score line being completed in the 76th minute, when Marvin Joseph got into the goal-scoring act.
GDF clinched their spot in the semi-final round with a dominant 2-0 win over ousted champions Sunburst Camptown, with Selwyn Isaacs scoring a beauty of a header from a Eusi ‘Boneyman’ Phillips free kick (26th) – a goal that was complemented by Delwyn Fraser’s 89th minute strike, handing Sunburst Camptown their marching orders from the tournament.

(By Calvin Roberts)

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