Zonal champs aim for national glory
By Kwame Williams (Trinidad & Tobago Guardian)
Once again, Intercol fever is in the air. Over the last three weeks, supporters hoping to spur on their teams to victory, along with neutral spectators just wanting to get a glimpse of tomorrow’s stars, have been packing football grounds and stadia around the nation.
Action has taken place in the North, South, East, Central and Tobago Zones of the Secondary Schools Football League, with teams doing battle to see who will be crowned the zonal Intercol kings. The top two outfits in each section then move on to compete for the national Intercol title.
The competition also gives the winners of the second or “Championship” division in each zone (the teams which earned promotion to the top flight) the chance to play against the outfits they will battle against next season.
There is just something about the knock-out round though that seems to bring the best out of some teams, while others buckle under the pressure. When Intercol rolls around, forget all about which school finished top of the league table and who beat who previously. That counts for nothing at this point in the season, because, as they say, if you lose you go home.
East Zone league winner San Juan Senior Comprehensive learned this lesson the hard way, bowing out at the semifinal stage. ‘Book’, as San Juan are known, were favoured to at least qualify for the final but were sent packing by fourth place finishers in the league, Arima, who edged them 1-0.
St Augustine Senior Comprehensive, runners-up in the league, went on to win the East Intercol crown. It was their third triumph in as many years. The ‘Green Machine’ found the early going a bit rough, conceding two goals in the first half, but they fought back to whip Arima 4-2.
In the South, Naparima did what was expected of them in defending their title. The Big Five champions did not have it easy though, as Presentation College San Fernando proved worthy adversaries. At the end of full time, the teams were tied 0-0, leaving the winner to be decided by a penalty shootout. Naparima prevailed 4-2.
There were no surprises in Central either, as “top dogs” Carapichaima added the zonal Intercol trophy to their league triumph. They made light work of Waterloo High School in a 4-0 romp at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, while Signal Hill whipped arch-rivals Scarborough 3-1 at the Dwight Yorke Stadium to clinch another Tobago Intercol title.
Class team of the North, Mucurapo Senior Comprehensive, was in devastating form as they thumped St Anthony’s College to hoist their first zonal Intercol trophy since 2004. At the end of a thrilling fixture at Fatima Grounds, ‘Compre’, 2-1 losers to Naparima in the Big Five final, had bettered the fighting ‘Tigers’ 5-2.
