North Village 3 Social Club 1

Two goals in the space of three minutes catapulted North Village to what proved a comfortable win in the end over Young Men’s Social Club at Bernard Park yesterday.

After Village’s Shayne Hollis and Social Club’s Clay Darrell traded goals in the first half, Pierre Smith and Keishen Bean capitalised upon poor defending after the break to secure the points.

The result, Village’s third league win of the campaign, snapped a two-game skid in all competitions. It also went some way towards compensating for their Dudley Eve Trophy semi-final loss on penalties to holders Devonshire Cougars three days earlier.

“This result was very important for the league points but more so psychologically because losing can become a habit and we don’t want to make that trend this season,” Bean said.

“After 120 minutes against a high quality opposition like Cougars it’s always going to be tough to get up three days later and do the same thing — especially against a team like Social Club who are going to scrap for everything.

“It was a bit of fatigue in the first half but once we worked it out we were better in the second half.

“We slowed it down and tried to play football. All the extra running and long balls we sort of stopped that and got back to basics and just knocked the ball around.”

Social Club entered the match with some momentum having held Boulevard to a draw in their previous outing.

But they forced to chase the game after Hollis intercepted a poor back-pass, rounded goalkeeper Koshun Lightbourne, and rolled the ball into the net.

Village’s joy was short-lived, however, as Social Club took only three minutes to cancel out Hollis’s strike. The visitors were awarded a contentious penalty after defender Jason Davis was judged to have fouled Clay Darrell in the area. After dusting himself off, Darrell, son of national cricket coach and former Village player Clay Smith, converted from the spot to leave the teams tied at the break.

Village, who made one change to their squad from the one that lost to Cougars, might have considered themselves fortunate not to have trailed at the half having been let off the hook after young forwards Nique Armstrong and Psalm ‘J Darrell wasted clear cut chances.

Social Club made a promising start to the second half with Armstrong’s volley flashing just wide of the post.

But Village eventually settled down and gained control.

The hosts frustrated their opponents with an attractive possessive game that finally told when the unmarked Smith controlled Marcellos Thomas’s chip over the defence and fired into the far bottom corner as Lightbourne tried to narrow the angle.

Then, before the dust had settled, Lightbourne was digging the ball out of the net once again after his defence switched off. Thomas picked out Bean with another quality pass which the latter steered past Lightbourne to effectively end the match as a contest.

The visitors nearly grabbed a second in the 81st minute when an attempted clearance by Tahj Bell, the Village goalkeeper, ricocheted off the body of substitute Cory Burgess. However, Bell was spared the blushes after recovering well to prevent the ball from crossing the line to maintain his team’s two-goal cushion.

“I think the performances are getting better as we go along,” Kameron Fox, the Social club coach, said.

“We are missing a few key players and like I said November [late transfer window] is going to be important for us to get more experience.

“There’s a lot of young guys up front and are not executing the goal scoring prowess as we should. We had two clear chances we didn’t take them and Village, being an experienced team, obviously put their chances away.”

GOALS

North Village

Hollis 20, Smith 54, Bean 57

Young Men’s Social Club

Clay Darrell 23

North Village: T Bell - J Thomas, T Fray, J Davis- A Johnston, J Briers, M Thomas, D Daniels, P Smith (sub: Z Hendrickson, 80)- S Hollis (sub: L Dill, 72), K Bean. Substitutes not used: K Knights, T Durham. Booked: Briers.

Social Club: K Lightbourne - D Simons, C Woolridge, K Francois, L Doughty - M Smith, J Simmons, D Hill (sub: C Burgess, 62), P Darrell (sub: K Butterfield, 68), N Armstrong - C Darrell. Booked: Doughty.

Referee: A Francis.