Scholars International, for much of the season chasing Elite Sporting Club, showed that having the Premier League’s biggest squad and remaining totally focused can pay dividends by winning the league title by the narrowest of margins on Sunday.
Going into the weekend’s final games, Scholars and Elite had almost identical records; played 20, won 13, drawn 6 and one draw. The only variation was their goal difference. Thanks to a marvellous 10-1 win over Cayman Athletic early in the season, Elite enjoyed a much better goal difference, but Scholars steadily whittled that down so that going into Sunday’s games Elite were only two up.
Elite played George Town at the TE McField Annex and at the same time, captained by Oneil Taylor, Scholars faced already relegated Future at West Bay’s Ed Bush stadium. Scholars did what they had to do and won 3-0 thanks to goals by Nahun Rodriguez, Tom Elliot and Davey McLaughlin but Elite could only manage a 2-2 draw against the always well organised and super fit George Town who still have plenty to play for despite only coming fourth in the league. Raheen Robinson and Fabian Malcolm scored for George Town and Elite’s strikes came from Alex Belcher and Dwayne ‘Gaza’ Wright. It was Wright’s 20th league goal of the season and 21st overall. Belcher scored his tenth, as did Malcolm.
George Town hope to make it a hat-trick of FA Cup wins on Sunday, against Scholars, at the TE McField Annex, kick-off 7pm. The early game is likely to be Roma United fighting for their Premier League survival, against Academy who were second to North Side in the Foster’s First Division.
George Town also host a four-team tournament in the second round of the Caribbean Football Union club championships at the end of May so they had plenty of motivation to do well against Elite.
In the other matches, Bodden Town beat Roma United 3-1 at the Bodden Town field through goals by Kareem James, Karl Solomon and Yefry Calderon. Cesar Forbes got Roma’s consolation.
In the early TE McField Annex Tigers beat Cayman Athletic 3-1 as Miguel Simms got his 12th of the campaign for Tigers with further goals from Alfredo Challenger and Janiel Wright. Anfernee Wright was on target for Athletic. That was Cayman Athletic’s equaliser but things turned sour for Wright as he was red carded for a second yellow card.
Phillip Berry is a Scholars International stalwart defender. He played left-back this season and even at 36 was never embarrassed by youngsters half his age. Berry believes it was Scholars’ solid defence that gave them their basis to grind out wins and draws when their strikers were not popping them in as expected.
“Elite got a good start early on by beating Cayman Athletic 10-1 which gave them a cushion,” Berry said. “We never lost faith and ensured defensively we played well as a unit, not giving up many goals.” Scholars only conceded 15 in 21 matches. Elite were the next best, conceding 16.
Scholars, with such a big squad never had problems that other teams experienced with injuries, absentees and suspensions blighting their strength. There was always at least one suitable replacement for every position. Even in goal, former Cayman national keeper Jermaine ‘Whacky Dip’ Brown found himself on the bench after being replaced by Alexis Reeves, a former Cuban international who Berry played against when in the Cayman national side. Despite an excellent record of only one league loss throughout, the general feeling is that Scholars made it difficult for themselves by not capitalising on the many chances they created.
Top marksmen were Mark Ebanks with nine and midfielder Nahun Rodriguez with nine. “We felt that we could have done better in the last third,” Berry said. “Our finishing was sloppy at times. Sometimes the strikers were not even aware that the ball was coming.” At least they got there in the end, thanks to the players’ commitment and excellent coaching from Dougie Row, Mario Watler and Juan Rivers.
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