– Stewartville Gunners and Showstoppers
– to contest tonight’s final

Many were called but in the end Stewartville Gunners and Showstoppers were the only two teams chosen and will contest tonight’s final of the inaugural Ansa McAl/Stag Beer ‘West Side’ 5-A-Side Football tournament at the Vergenoegen Rice Mill Tarmac from 20:00 hrs.Before the showdown which will see the winner pocketing $200,000, De Kinderen Village and New Road Eagles are set to clash in the game that will determine the tournament’s third and fourth place teams.

Another mammoth crowd was on hand to witness Friday night’s semi-finals, which certainly didn’t live up to expectations.

The unpredictable nature of the tournament took a complete turn when the Semi-Finals turned out to be a one-sided affair.

In the first game of the double-header Stewartville Gunners made light work of De Kinderen Village defeating them 3 – 1.

Initially, De Kinderen Village signalled their intention to eliminate the Gunners when Ulric Bourne found the back of the net in the 10th minute, a lead which they enjoyed throughout the first half.

But the Stewartville team dressed in full ‘Gunners’ (Arsenal) replica apparel equalised through Dwayne Charles upon kick-off in the second half (21st minute) and Orette Stephenson extended the lead three minutes later.

Donald Bobb then put the icing on the cake in the 38th minute to seal the win and send Stewartville Gunners through to the finals.

The evening’s second game had nothing for the fans to be ‘wowed’ about, other than the fact that New Road Eagles had their wings clipped in a 6 – 2 drubbing, suffered at the hands of Showstoppers.

New Road Eagles flew out the nest and raced to an early lead when Simon Emmanuel open his team’s account in the second minute but that was the only thing his side had to cheer about.

Dexroy Adams scored his first of four goals in the 16th minute and then followed up with strikes in the 24th, 25th and 36th minute, while Anthony Sancho (34th minute) and Winston Johnson (39th minute) were the other scorers for Showstoppers.

Ravi Chand’s 27th minute goal for New Road Eagles failed to have any significant impact on the contest and none of the other players for the eventual losers came close to scoring.

Apart from the $200,000 going to the team that triumphs in tonight’s finals, the runner-up is set to take home $100,000 while third and fourth will receive $75,000 and $25,000 respectively.

Coordinator Collin ‘BL’ Aaron said that he’s extremely happy with the support the event has received thus far and is in anticipation of a climax that’s only fitting for a tournament that has seen its fair share of upsets.

Despite one player suffering a broken leg in the quarter-finals, Aaron said that the tournament has been incident free and thanked the players and their supporters for being very discipline.

Several give-a-ways are planned for this evening, as the organisers stated their intention of saying thank you to the people who supported the competition since it first kicked off on Friday, August 22.