A massacre of the innocents

By M.R. Praveen Chandran

CHALAKUDY, MARCH 22. Former champion Railways handed out a few lessons to minnows Daman & Diu, drubbing it 16-0 in a preliminary Cluster III match of the 56th National football championship, for the Santosh Trophy, at the Carmel Stadium here on Wednesday.

Balai Mondal (5th, 38th, 44th, 55th and 77th minutes), Manjinder Singh (13th, 21st, 30th and 59th), Kamal Ghosh (25th, 33rd, 52nd and 67th), Moin-ul-Haq (75th), Nazeem Riyazi (88th) and Manjit Singh (89th) feasted on their inept rival as Railways warmed up in style for tougher tests ahead.

The side, showing no mercy on a bunch of college kids, who are here without a coach, scored eight goals in either half. The slow Daman defenders failed to check the cohesive thrust of the Railway forwardline of Kamal Ghosh, Balai Mondal and Manjinder Singh.

To compound its problem further was the shoddy work under the bar by Ralph Miranda. Though he was substituted midway through the second-half, it did not stop the flow of goals.

Balai opened the floodgates, heading in a Manjit Singh cross in the fifth minute. He was again in the thick of action, feeding Manjinder whose 25-yarder brooked no reply from the rival custodian. Manjinder made it 3-0 in the 21st minute, sidefooting the ball past Miranda after doing a nice 1-2 with Mondal.

The marauding Railways forwards had the Daman defence in knots and Kamal, it was, who next humiliated the rival custodian with a strike in the 25th minute and then pulled the ball from the goal- line for Majinder to head in the fifth goal. Three minutes later, Ghosh himself was to score again, this time off a Manjit pass, before Mondal struck twice again to make it 8- 0 at half-time.

For Daman, skipper Anand Nair missed the only worthwhile chance his team got in the first-half as he shot straight to goalkeeper Sumit Choudhary from the top of the box. Railways did not slacken the pace of attack in the second-half and increased its tally further when Ghosh dribbled past two Daman defenders and scored with a 20-yard volley. However, after a while, Mondal made it 10- 0 by tapping in a Tajuddin cross from the right.

But then, the flow of goals continued as substitutes Moin-ul-Haq and Nazeem Riyazi got their names into the scoring list before Manjit, who had a field day in the midfield, completed the rout with another long-ranger in the 89th minute.

Services takes on Rajasthan in a Cluster I match on Thursday.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : East Bengal spoils Bagan's party
Next     : It's beach and bash for the superstars