Saints bag championship trophy with 1-0 win over Victorians

By Lee Hwee Cheng

Jalan Besar Stadium, Friday, May 25, 2007 – St Andrew’s Junior College picked up their second championship for the year when their girls’ football team pipped strong favourites and defending champions Victoria Junior College 1-0 for the National ‘A’ Division Girls Football Championship title.

Played out on the USD625,000 artificial turf of Jalan Besar Stadium, one tends to wonder if it was the ‘A’ Division Boys or the Girls who actually felt luckier this year.  The atmosphere in Jalan Besar was equally lively and exciting, complete with a ‘Master of Ceremony’ and his funky hip-hop music – and of course, the boisterous cheers of the supporters from both camps.

It had been a relatively uneventful first half, as both sides ran hard to defend their goal box and even harder to create plays on the offensive ends, but all the efforts resulted in zilch. 

The one and only goal of the match came rather unexpectedly to all in the stadium and especially devastatingly to the Victorians sometime in the middle of the second half.  Victorians had defended their turf tightly and chased the Saints down as they made their attack, forcing Saints’ #10 Maria Daud Rowe to send a long but too light pass  from the right flank to her striker sprinting ahead.  In what was supposed to be an easy moment with no real threat from the offense but turned out to be a few horrifying seconds instead, the goalie ran forward in an attempt to clear the ground ball but completely missed the kick!  She turned her head as the ball rolled right past her, just in time to watch in horror as the lurking Saint striker pounced on the blunder and immediately sprinted forth to push the ball into goal.

A stunned moment later, the gallery broke into wild cheers when the Saints realized a goal had been scored in their favour.

The Victorians picked up their crestfallen spirits soon enough to launch into relentless attacks, hoping to find a goal to level the game.  With her well-taken free kicks and corner kicks, #10 Kuan Ren created plenty of shooting chances for her strikers within the penalty area but the Saints’ defense was also a force not to be undermined.

Once again, it was only a matter of time, before the final whistle was finally blown.

Editor’s note:  We might have gotten some names wrong, and also if you do recognize yourselves or any of your friends in these pictures, do drop us a note in the "Comments" section and we’ll update the captions accordingly.  Thanks!