​The Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School Foot­ball League fi­nals took place Wednesday morn­ing at the Ari­ma Velo­drome, serv­ing up a spec­tac­u­lar day of foot­ball de­spite ear­ly chal­lenges. Fol­low­ing heavy show­ers that had drenched the grounds for over two hours, the sun emerged pre­cise­ly as the tour­na­ment be­gan at 10.20 am.

The day’s events show­cased phe­nom­e­nal skill and dra­ma across three piv­otal match­es, fea­tur­ing the coun­try’s top young tal­ent, in­clud­ing qual­i­ty per­for­mances from Yohan Robin­son (Ari­ma Boys’ RC) and Glo­ria Hen­ry (Sig­nal Hill Gov­ern­ment) and Ki­mani Thomas (Bon Ac­cord Gov­ern­ment). The com­pe­ti­tion de­ter­mined the cham­pi­ons in both the boys’ U-12 and girls’ U-15 cat­e­gories, cul­mi­nat­ing in a dra­mat­ic up­set in the fi­nal heavy­weight clash in the boys’ U-15 fi­nale.

​Ari­ma Boys’ RC tri­umphs over Scar­bor­ough RC

​The first match saw the Trinidad cham­pi­ons, Ari­ma Boys’ RC, take on Scar­bor­ough Boys’ RC from To­ba­go.

Robin­son, the Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) of the Un­der-12 League, wast­ed no time as­sert­ing his dom­i­nance. In the fourth minute, Robin­son pulled right and un­leashed a shot that sailed past the Scar­bor­ough keep­er to give Ari­ma the lead. The en­er­getic cheers of the Ari­ma Boys’ RC band, fea­tur­ing the song Ari­ma, We Want a Goal, un­der­scored the ac­tion.

​Robin­son soon dou­bled the lead with a su­perb so­lo ef­fort. How­ev­er, Jceon Jack in­ject­ed en­thu­si­asm in­to the Scar­bor­ough side in the eleventh minute, whip­ping a right-foot­ed shot in­to the net to make the score 2-1. With four min­utes left in the half, Ke­nai Reid, son of na­tion­al coach and NAAA of­fi­cial Kelsey Tou­s­saint Reid, in­ter­cept­ed a pass and fired a blaz­ing right-foot­ed shot past the Ari­ma cus­to­di­an, lev­el­ling the score at 2-2.

​In the sec­ond half, Ari­ma Boys’ cap­tain, Zachiel Smith, re­stored the lead with a won­der­ful strike in the 28th minute. Robin­son then added his third goal, putting Ari­ma Boys’ RC ahead 4-2. With on­ly two min­utes re­main­ing, Nazism Mar­tinez se­cured the win, mak­ing the fi­nal score 5-2. Ari­ma Boys’ RC main­tained their un­beat­en sea­son, large­ly thanks to the ex­cep­tion­al play of MVP Robin­son.

Sig­nal Hill dom­i­nates girls’ fi­nal

​The sec­ond match fea­tured the high­ly suc­cess­ful Sig­nal Hill Gov­ern­ment against the Trinidad cham­pi­on, Pleas­antville Gov­ern­ment.

​Sig­nal Hill, known for its tal­ent­ed teams, was led by its ma­raud­ing cap­tain and na­tion­al youth play­er, Glo­ria Hen­ry. Though Pleas­antville’s top play­er, Verne­cia St Bernard, showed class, she even­tu­al­ly had to bow to the na­tion­al tal­ent. Hen­ry opened the scor­ing with a well-placed kick, but two min­utes lat­er, St Bernard equalised for Pleas­antville.

​Hen­ry quick­ly re­assert­ed her au­thor­i­ty, swerv­ing past two de­fend­ers be­fore strik­ing home. Tei­ja Welling­ton then added to the lead, drib­bling past two play­ers be­fore slot­ting home to give her team a com­mand­ing 3-1 lead at the half. On the re­sump­tion, Hen­ry com­plet­ed her hat-trick, hit­ting a right-foot­ed shot past the Pleas­antville goal­keep­er to se­cure an­oth­er na­tion­al ti­tle for Sig­nal Hill.

Bon Ac­cord edges Ari­ma Boys’ RC for U-15 ti­tle

​The fi­nal match of the morn­ing pit­ted two pri­ma­ry school foot­ball heavy­weights: Bon Ac­cord Gov­ern­ment and Ari­ma Boys’ RC. It was a tremen­dous, close­ly con­test­ed match, end­ing the first half locked at 0-0.

​The goals fi­nal­ly came in the sec­ond ses­sion. Fol­low­ing a han­dled ball in the box, Robin­son con­vert­ed the penal­ty to put Ari­ma Boys’ RC ahead 1-0. An­dion Thomas, the Bon Ac­cord cap­tain, stepped up to the chal­lenge and quick­ly equalised. Ki­mani Thomas then put Bon Ac­cord ahead in the 40th minute. Robin­son was not fin­ished, how­ev­er, earn­ing and con­vert­ing an­oth­er penal­ty to tie the game at 2-2.

​In a dra­mat­ic fin­ish, Eli­jah Roberts snatched the match-win­ner for Bon Ac­cord with just one minute re­main­ing.

Thomas joined Robin­son and Hen­ry as one of the stand­out play­ers of the day.

​Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry School League, Ter­rence Ceasar, was full of praise for the young play­ers, stat­ing that the U-12 Fi­nal was the best he has seen in the past decade. He stressed that this lev­el of foot­ball was worth see­ing and urged spon­sors to in­vest in the de­vel­op­ment of these young ath­letes.

Wednes­day’s Fi­nals re­sults

Boys U-12

Ari­ma Boys RC 5 (Y Robin­son 3, Z Smith, N Mar­tinez) vs Scar­bor­ough RC 2 (J Jack, K Reid).

Girls U-15

Sig­nal Hill 4 (G Hen­ry 3, T Welling­ton) vs Pleas­antville 1 (V St Bernard).

Boys U-15

Ari­ma Boys RC 2 (Y Robin­son 2) vs Bon Ac­cord 3 (A Thomas, K Thomas, E Roberts).