Mayor’s Cup Semifinals

Fruta Conquerors overcame Uprising 2-1 in the first semifinal match of the Mayor’s Cup while Alpha United spoiled Sunburst Camptown’s intentions of having an all Guyana Beverages teams final.
In the first match of the evening Conqueror’s Captain Neville Stanton catapulted his team into the finals when he completed a double to give his team a 2-0 advantage.
After a scoreless first half, Stanton started the second half on a productive note as he connected with the back of the net in the 53rd minute.
Stanton led an unyielding attack for Conquerors, who seemed to be trying to expand on their 1-0 advantage early in the match. Conquerors got the break they were looking for when Stanton made no mistake in guiding a penalty kick between the uprights in the 68th minute to complete his double.
Uprising’s Rensford Coleridge was determined not to go out without a fight and managed to score his team’s lone goal in the 82nd minute before the end of regulation time.
In the second game of the evening, the Camptown supporters who came out in their numbers went home disappointed as their championship hopes went down the drain, compliments of Alpha United’s Sean ‘Fatso’ Bishop and Digicel Kick Start Clinic selectee Andrew Murray Jnr.
Alpha’s fans raised many concerns at the beginning of the game when they realized that their star forward Anthony ‘Awa’ Abrams was not in the starting line up. This coupled with the absence of explosive defender Quincy Madramootoo, who was sitting that game out because of injury, made some of the  Alpha supporters uneasy as they faced the same team which sent them packing in the Banks Premium Beer Semifinals.
 According to coach of Alpha, Wayne Dover, Abrams was benched because he did not attend practice sessions and due to the actions demonstrated as a protest to his benching, Abrams will not be playing in the final against Fruta Conquerors this Sunday.
Alpha managed to put all that aside and pursue a relentless attack on the Camptown defence early, keeping the ball in Camptown territory for most of the scoreless first half.
Andrew Murray managed to tuck one in from up close after Camptown goalkeeper Richie Richards’s save of a Sean Bishop free kick ricocheted off the cross bar into a swarm of Alpha players in front of the goal in the 52nd minute.
Alpha’s second goal came in the 60th minute when Bishop  netted the ball above the Camptown wall.
After the game, Dover gave Stabroek Sport a synopsis of  his game strategy.
“We gave Bishop a very dynamic role, in terms of being free by moving back and fourth in the midfield as well as creating space and distributing the ball.  We knew that we could play that way because it opens the field for us against Camptown who were obviously expecting the four-four-two formation. We got a lot of space and we used Elton Brown who has been firing recently as the lone striker to move across the face to allow Bishop to get a hit at it once he got the opportunity.”