THE drama in the 2024 Secondary Schools Football League (SSFL) season is far from over. The boys' championship division Big 5 playoffs took an unexpected turn on November 29 when the game between Scarborough Secondary and Pleasantville Secondary was called off after 70 minutes due to a light outage at the Shaw Park, Tobago facility.
The teams were locked at 1-1 at the time of the outage, and though referee Nicholai Nyron waited 15-20 minutes to see if the issue would have been sorted, he was forced to stop the game before full time.
With both teams at the foot of the Big 5 table with a point apiece, three points were of utmost importance for both dugouts. Pleasantville took the lead in the first five minutes of the game when Terrelle Williams found the back of the net to register his school's first goal of the Big 5 campaign. Scarborough battled back and got an equaliser.
However, because of the outage, neither team could land the win needed to propel them up the table in their quest for promotion.
SSFL president Merere Gonzales said the league will "advise accordingly" on the way forward in the matter.
The Pleasantville contingent were scheduled to return to Trinidad on a 9.45 pm flight on November 29. At present, it's unclear if and when the game will be replayed.
"If you keep (the Pleasantville) players tomorrow (November 30) and ask them to play the remaining 20 minutes, it's a case of whether they'll get flights accordingly," Gonzales said.
The SSFL president said the game didn't start as promptly as they would have hoped, as referee Nyron had his own delays on his journey from Trinidad for the 3 pm kickoff.
Central zone championship division winners Carapichaima East Secondary (five points) currently head the standings with a superior goal difference over Trinity College (Moka) and Hillview College, both of whom are on five points. Hillview have already played their quota of matches.
This fixture aside, there is still one outstanding round in the playoffs. Pleasantville are still scheduled to meet Trinity, with Carapichaima set to host Scarborough in the other remaining fixture.
The top three teams will gain promotion for the 2025 premier division season.
SSFL boys' championship division Big 5 playoffs:
Teams*GP*W*D*L*GF*GA*GD*Pts
Carapichaima East*3*1*2*0*4*2*2*5
Trinity Moka*3*1*2*0*3*2*1*5
Hillview College*4*1*2*1*4*4*0*5
Scarborough Secondary*2*0*1*1*2*3*-1*1
Pleasantville Secondary*2*0*1*1*0*2*-2*1
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