Horseracing and football with James Adderley
Good evening, I’m James Adderley and you’re locked on to this fresh dish of Sports Monday. The mad rush to make the four team playoffs in the Belize Premier Football League continues unabated with five weeks to go before the blade of elimination officially falls. Yesterday’s clash at the M.C.C. Grounds found the Builder’s Hardware Bandits of Belmopan face to face with the defending semi-pro champion Kulture Yabra of Belize City.
We open to this spotkick from Norman Tillman Nunez; it crashes into the Belmopan wall–Nunez slams back the rebound only to see Charlie Slusher sail and come up with a spectacular save.
Belmopan’s reply comes by way of this long outside shot from off the left wing that doesn’t faze Shane Moody. At the other end, Landi Pinelo punishes Wilhelm “Locho” Coyi, but the Bandits defendant reaches out desperately with the right hand for which he gets a yellow card, but more importantly forces his team to concede a penalty.
This serves to give Vallan Symms the opportunity to come up with his fourth conversion of the season-and in reality, Charlie Slusher had no chance as Yabra takes the 1-zip lead. Belmopan then look to this corner kick for the equalizer, but Shane Moody makes the save on the John Trapp header.
Now keep your eyes on Yabra’s Landi Pinelo, as he displays big time skills by beating “Locho” Coyi and then realising the ball over a squatting Charlie Slusher for the 2-zip Yabra lead.
In the meantime folks, this certainly cannot be football and it looks more like a piggyback ride to us, for which number seven Edmund Thomas gets a yellow card; it could have been worse though.
Meanwhile, this nice feed from Julio Valle gets Wiltshire a shot at Shane Moody, but it inches in front of the far upright and at the half the city team, Kulture sits atop a 2-zip lead.
So we go to second half action and it’s Landi Pinelo trying to duplicate that goal scoring move from the first half, alas, he obviously only gets half the job done.
Yabra looks to make it 3-zip as this Norman Nunez press, but the target remains exclusive for the striker. Downfield, the Bandits opt for the long shot from outside, but it’s right at Shane Moody. Obviously, the shift in momentum is solidly with the Bandits camp, and for sure a goal should have resulted from this shot at point blank range.
Nevertheless, Stanley Robinson tries to increase the Kulture lead with this header, but nothing doing. Then Emory Nunez decides to fire at Slusher, which unfortunately takes to orbit. It’s getting late, so Edmund “The Buzzard” Pandy launches this corner kick, which gets through to Jair Perrera and Belmopan gets on to the scoreboard with a spectacular heel goal. Unfortunately, it proved to be a case of too much too little too late. Yabra records the 2-1 big W.
In other results from weekend, Sagitun and Juventus rallied to a 2-all stalemate, San Pedro blanked Griga United 2-zip, while Corozal edged Acros Real Verdes in a 2-1 finish.
With five weeks to go, Kulture Yabra still sits atop the standings in the league with twenty-one points, Sagitun has sixteen, Juventus fourteen, San Pedro thirteen, Corozal Victory twelve, Builder’s Bandits nine, Acros Verdes seven and Griga remains in the cellar with five points. Only four of these teams make it to post season life.
In the goal scoring department, Randolph Humes leads with six goals, Dean Flowers and Rupert Smith show five apiece, while Julio Valle, Gabriel Alvarez, Bent Burgess and Vallan Symms all scored four goals apiece.
Changing gears folks, the Honourable Ralph Fonseca Cup of horseracing was staged at Burrell Boom yesterday and a new track record of one minute, thirty point one seconds was set in the A-Class seven furlong event. There you have Freightliner of Hoare’s Stables beating out stable mate Alize for top honours, while Jamie’s Pal of Gillette’s Stables took third place in a field of six. Congratulations to the organisers.
That’s our show for today, we invite you back same time, same place next week. Jah over all, I’m James Adderley.
