North Village 2 Hamilton Parish 1

London Steede came off the bench and headed a last-minute winner to give North Village a scrappy victory at Bernard Park yesterday.

A stunning Tre Ming free-kick put Village ahead in the first half before Parish pulled level through Justin Bell but just as the the teams looked destined to share the points, Steede headed in from close range.

The late strike was much to the relief of Village stand-in coach DeVrae Tankard, deputising for Kenny Thompson who is on international duty with Bermuda.

“We made it difficult,” Tankard said.

“The execution just wasn’t there today but I am proud of the team for grinding out the result. We must put in good performances and let every result take care of itself.”

Village started the stronger of the two teams and took advantage of an extremely high Parish defensive line but they were wasteful in their early attempts to penetrate the spaces vacated by the Parish’s attacking full backs.

Parish looked dangerous on the counter-attack and could have made the breakthrough themselves when Samuel McKittrick fed former Village striker Justin Bell, but Village goalkeeper Pierre Smith made a solid reflex save to avert the opportunity.

Village opened the scoring in stunning fashion after Tre Ming was fouled by McKittrick just outside the penalty area. The skipper picked himself up to beautifully curl the resulting free-kick inside the near post past Parish goalkeeper Nigel Burgess.

Parish made an exceptional response to equalise within six minutes as McKittrick initiated an attack by clipping a good ball forward for Samario Valasse-Paul, who squared for Bell to sidefoot past the onrushing Smith.

Both sides continued the fast-paced, end-to-end football in their quest to go ahead before the break with Village coming close through Jaizel Smith-DeShields, who fired wide after being played through by Jordan Outerbridge in the left channel.

Parish also nearly went ahead when Leroy Lewis cut back for Valasse-Paul, but the midfielder’s effort sailed high and wide, and his side continued to probe with more attacking intent at the start of the second half.

However, sloppy passing in the phase between midfield and attack, which mainly stemmed from a heightened effort by the 2022 FA Cup champions to press the ball, prevented them from scoring again.

They did create a couple of decent scoring opportunities with a neat one-two between Jarye Bean and Valasse-Paul resulting in the winger firing a powerful effort straight at Smith. A few minutes later, they would link up again to good effect, but this time Valasse-Paul missed the goal completely with his effort.

Village started to exert pressure in the final quarter of the match and Tre Ming clipped a ball over the Parish defence for Daion Swan-Desilva but he blazed his effort over the bar.

D’Andre Wainwright offered pace in the striker position when he came on with just over 20 minutes remaining and Village punished Parish for a lack of shape in the final moments, with the substitute playing an important role to the winning goal.

He controlled an aerial pass and laid off for Ming to spread to Swan-Desilva, who redeemed himself from his earlier miss by whipping a ball into the unmarked Steede to head home past Burgess from close range.

Scorers:

North Village: Ming 22, Steede 89

Hamilton Parish: Bell 28

TEAMS

North Village (3-4-3): P Smith 5 – T Williams 5, T Wilson 5, J Harvey 5 – J Outerbridge 5 (sub: L Steede, 80min), K Harrison 6, T Ming 6, A Dos Santos 6 (sub: K Knights, 53 5) – A Deshields-Tankard 5, J Smith-Deshields 5 (sub: D Wainwright, 66 6), D Swan-Desilva 5. Substitutes not used: R Sampson, T Bean, K Leverock, I Simmons. Booked: Williams.

Hamilton Parish (4-2-3-1): N Burgess 6 – J Bean 5, M Turner 5, Q Outerbridge 5, R McKittrick 5 (sub: K Wade, 46 5) – Z Burgess 5, S McKittrick 6 – S Valasse-Paul 6 (sub: C Lindo, 78), J Bell 6, L Lewis 5 – M Walker 5 (sub: T Welch, 84). Substitutes not used: J Steede, J Stowe, J Small. Booked: S McKittrick, Bell

Referee: S Maybury