Nigel Si­mon

First year coach Derek King, 29, and his bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic play­ers wrote their names in­to the lo­cal foot­ball his­to­ry books when they cap­tured a record fifth ti­tle for the 2009 sea­son on Fri­day night. Nick­named the 'East­ern Li­ons' Joe Pub­lic achieved the feat when they won the Dig­i­tal Pro Bowl at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo. Joe Pub­lic came from be­hind to earn a 1-1 draw in reg­u­la­tion time with last year's win­ner, Cale­do­nia AIA of Mor­vant/Laven­tille be­fore se­cur­ing a 5-3 penal­ty-kicks win thanks to Colom­bian goal­keep­er Ale­jan­dro Figueroa, who de­nied Cale­do­nia's Keon Daniel first penal­ty-at­tempt in the shoot-out.

Hav­ing won the Dig­i­tal Pro League, "Big Six", Toy­ota Clas­sic and the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy, on Wednes­day night, King's men were on a quest to sep­a­rate them­selves from the 2001 W con­nec­tion side, which had al­so won four ti­tles do­mes­ti­cal­ly in ad­di­tion to the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­onship. And be­fore an ap­pre­cia­tive crowd the Jack Warn­er owned club did just that prov­ing that they are re­al­ly kings of the T&T Pro League. How­ev­er, ear­ly on it seemed that the now reg­u­lar af­ter match cel­e­bra­tions and cham­pagne bath would have had to be put on hold for an­oth­er time as the well rest­ed Cale­do­nia, beat­en in the FA semis by Joe Pub­lic on Mon­day, 3-1 seemed in­tent on ex­act­ing re­venge and hold­ing on­to to its ti­tle.

Cale­do­nia coach Ja­maal Shabazz could not have asked for a bet­ter start as with­in three min­utes of the match kick-off by ref­er­ee Gre­go­ry Hospedales his team went ahead in some­what of a com­i­cal fash­ion through mid­field­er Den­sill Theobold. Theobold, mak­ing his first start in over two weeks due to an an­kle in­jury fired in a shot on goal from some dis­tance which team-mate, Guyana's Ran­dolph Jerome tried to redi­rect with an at­tempt­ed head­er but missed. The missed by Jerome caught de­fend­er Seon Pow­er and Figueroa off guard as the ball trick­led in­to the goal to the de­light of the Cale­do­nia play­ers, who no doubt could not have be­lieved their for­tune. As Joe Pub­lic, play­ing its fourth match in sev­en days, and third in five days took its time to find its rhythm Cale­do­nia con­tin­ued to look the bet­ter of both teams.

Bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic's Gore­an High­ley un­leash­es a left foot­ed shot on goal which Cale­do­nia AIA of Mor­vant/Laven­tille goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham, left, failed to stop in their Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day night. Joe Pub­lic won the match 5-3 on penal­ty-kicks af­ter the match end­ed 1-1 in reg­u­la­tion time.

But against the run of play some­what, the live­ly Gore­an "Rat­ty" High­ley drew the "East­ern Li­ons" lev­el in the 35th minute.

High­ley was on spot to tap home from close range past Ja­maican goal­keep­er Kevin Gra­ham af­ter the Cale­do­nia de­fence failed to clear a cou­ple shots at their goal. The de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons then had two chances to re­gain the lead be­fore the break, but strik­ers Jerome and Akim Arm­strong, both head­ed off tar­get.

With the min­utes tick­ing away in the sec­ond-half, Joe Pub­lic and Cale­do­nia in­tro­duced fresh legs up front, with Con­rod Smith (Joe Pub­lic) and Key­on Ed­wards (Cale­do­nia) be­ing in­tro­duced for Yu Hoshide and Jerome re­spec­tive­ly in the 70th minute as both teams went in search of the go-ahead goal.

A minute Cale­do­nia's Ka­reem "Tiny" Joseph al­most hand­ed his team the lead but he hooked a right foot­ed shot wide of tar­get and eight min­utes lat­er Figueroa was called in­to ac­tion to keep out a long range ef­fort from Theobold. At the oth­er end of the field, Gra­ham was al­so forced to make a bril­liant save from High­ley from a Mic­ah Lewis' cross while in the fi­nal minute Cale­do­nia sub­sti­tutes Sher­ron Joseph and Key­on Ed­wards just missed the tar­get to send the match in­to the dread­ed penal­ty-kicks where Keon Daniel's (back af­ter an in­jury lay­off) lazy ef­fort was bril­liant­ly kept out by Figueroa div­ing to his right. Ka­reem Joseph, Stephan David and Sher­ron Joseph scored Cale­do­nia's three oth­er at­tempts.

On the oth­er­hand the "East­ern Li­ons" made no mis­take with their spot kicks as cap­tain, Ker­ry Bap­tiste, Trent Noel, Con­rod Smith, Car­lyle Mitchell and Seon Pow­er all con­vert­ed to land the $100,000 win­ner-take-all first prize. The lone con­so­la­tion for Cale­do­nia was the $1,000 cheque for Theobold who was vot­ed as the Most Valu­able Play­er of the fi­nal, a de­ci­sion which did not go down too well with most of the spec­ta­tors on hand and right­ful­ly so. In the night's first match, na­tion­al and East Zone BGTT Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League cham­pi­ons, St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, de­feat­ed na­tion­al Co­ca-Co­la In­ter-Col cham­pi­ons, El Do­ra­do East Sec­ondary 2-1 for the Dig­i­cel In­vi­ta­tion­al Chal­lenge Tro­phy.

Fi­fa vice-pres­i­dent and Con­ca­caf boss, Jack Warn­er, front row stoop­ing next to the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl tro­phy, to­geth­er with bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic play­ers, sig­nals five in recog­ni­tion of cap­tur­ing a fifth ti­tle in the do­mes­tic foot­ball sea­son. Pub­lic won a 5-3 penal­ty-kick shoot-out over Cale­do­nia AIA af­ter a 1-1 draw in the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl $100,000 win­ner-take-all fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day night.