K&S semifinals headed for Camptown ground today
By Isaiah Chappelle
Guyana Chronicle
December 28, 2003
THE semifinals of the Christmas Football Festival will get under way at the Camptown ground for the first time, today, and will produce an inevitable Georgetown/Linden final.
In the first match, 1993 champions Camptown meet last year’s losing finalists Western Tigers, now playing under the Kashif & Shanghai All Stars banner, while in the second game four-time champions Topp XX take on newcomers Silver Shattas.
This could just be the prelude to a repeat of the 2000 final between Topp XX and Camptown.
Topp XX are poised to reach their fifth final, with a most likely easy victory over Silver Shattas, while Camptown should get past the controversial Western Tigers.
The four-time champions who clinched their titles in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2000, have a star-studded line-up with guest players Neil Hernandez and Anthony Abrams, along with professional players Carey Harris and Howard Lowe. Add Collie Hercules, Kayode McKinnon, Abbasy McPherson, the seasoned Sheldon Noel and goalkeeper Richard Reynolds and Topp XX present the most formidable side on paper.
Opponents Silver Shattas that came into existence just last September, have Bobbington King, Charles Rose and Ravin Choo in goal, but their victories in the climb to the semifinals were far from convincing.
Thus this semifinal should just be a necessary formality for Topp XX to reach the final.
Camptown will have a bigger chunk to chew in Western Tigers and to get past the controversial Tigers they will have to sustain the intensity of their game. They have clearly suffered from complacency and that could endanger their chances.
The 1993 champions and 2000 losing finalists have a potent striking line with guest player Gregory Richardson and Elton Brown who is at present one of the players with the most goals.
Both are Olympians, with Richardson already serving on the National senior team. Good support will come from Olympian Jonathan Peters, Nigel Codrington and Leslie Holligan in mid-field and Damien Edwards in the defence. Camptown also boast one of the country’s most reliable goalkeepers, Marlon Hendricks. So they appear to be a sound team.
The All Stars boys will be hampered because they can only field eight players of Western Tigers at any one time, as directed by the Guyana Football Federation that had barred them altogether for reasons still unknown. Along with that, star striker Devon Millington is excluded from today’s encounter, drawing a red card for punching a BV/Triumph player in the groin.
But the All Stars line-up will have the strong National Under-23 captain Shawn Beveney, a dependable player, along with the reliable Delon Fraser in defence and Rollox Scott in goal.
The Kashif & Shanghai All Stars have shown that they can fight the odds and have withstood several obstacles in the championship and triumphed. That resilience could give them another berth in the final with not an unlikely victory of the powerhouse Camptown.
Whatever the outcome, it will be a Georgetown/Linden final, but securing those two places will be a hard-fought battle today.