THE Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GT&T) sponsored Petra Organisation round-robin/knock-out Football League got off to an exciting start on Saturday last at the #5 Ground West Coast Berbice.It was a bittersweet evening for teams from the Ancient County and the Mining Town of Linden, with New Amsterdam United and Winners Connection coming out victorious in the night’s header.

Watched by a fair-sized crowd, Winners Connection defeated Rosignol United 6 – 1, while Milerock went down 2 – 1 to New Amsterdam United.

Playing in the opening game, New Amsterdam was by far the more aggressive of the two sides and put together more promising attack than their Linden counterparts.

The club from New Amsterdam was led by a double from Adrian Adams (26th and 85th minute) while Jermaine Grandison scored the Lindeners lone goal in the 70th minute.

Meanwhile, in the second game, Winners Connection showed why they are regarded as the best club in Linden, when they destroyed Rosignol United.

Marmalaque Davidson was in fine form, scoring a hat-trick (43rd, 55th and 62nd minutes) while Fitzroy Chin (17th), Rawle Gittens (68th) and Derrol Danity (89th) scored a goal each to lead Winners Connection to the lopsided win.

Oswin Carmichael had given the home side an early lead scoring what is the tournament’s fastest goal, 17 seconds into the game, but that was as close Rosignol would come to scoring for the rest of the night.

The tournament will see teams from Linden, Berbice and the East Coast of Demerara competing to see who will pocket the $500,000 first place prize while second place will go home with $250,000, 3rd place $125,000 and 4th place $75,000.

Matches will be played at No.5 ground in West Berbice, Mackenzie Sports Club and Victoria. (Rawle Toney)