Ainsley Walters, Staff ReporterBRIDGEPORT Comprehensive's fairytale football run continued yesterday when the Portmore team added the Walker Cup Knockout crown to its Manning Cup title with a 2-1 victory against Norman Manley Comprehensive at Harbour View.
Forward Dean Thompson's powerful volley 29 minutes inside the first half won Bridgeport their second schoolboy title in two weeks, breaking a 1-1 tie after Kayon Cameron's 14th-minute equaliser had cancelled Kemar Petrekin's ninth-minute lead.
Victory against Norman Manley, last year's Manning Cup champions, put the previously unheralded St. Catherine team on course for the ultimate schoolboy accolade - triple champions.
Never before had a team from outside the Corporate Area won the Manning or Walker Cup but Bridgeport changed all that, making coach Anthony Patrick the most elated man at Compound yesterday.
"I'm very pleased ... overwhelmed," said Patrick, whose team's next shot at history will be the Olivier Shield final against either Cornwall College or Glenmuir High, who square-off for the rural daCosta Cup title next Saturday.
"The players came through for me, themselves, the school, Portmore and St. Catherine on a whole," the jubilant coach added.
Bridgeport made their intentions clear from as early as the first minute when strong-kicking central midfielder Oneil Thompson tried to repeat his Manning Cup final heroics, floating a high left side 30-yard free-kick at goal, but goalkeeper Andrew Gibson was equal to the task and tipped for a corner.
It didn't take long, however, for the confident Manning Cup winners to score their first goal against Norman Manley, which turned up with a 13-man squad, minus a reserve goalie.
National Under-17 Petrekin, with his back to goal inside the six-yard box, acrobatically finished a build-up engineered by lanky Thompson deep inside his half. The left-sided cross came from his strike partner, Dean Thompson, but it was midfielder Thompson who started the play by flipping the ball over an opponent's head inside his half and dribbled through midfield before laying off to the left flank.
Norman Manley equalised five minutes later when busy Kevin Mills dispossessed defender Mark Newsome on the left flank, dummied another and dribbled to the touchline from where he fired in a cross along the ground. Cameron, running in unmarked at the far post, neatly poked the ball away from goalie Maurice Evans.
The Maxfield Avenue school could have gone 2-1 up 11 minutes later off a similar play but Adonijah Cameron's blast from point-blank range was blocked by a defender inside the box.
Comeback artistes Bridgeport, who won the Manning Cup semi-final and final from behind, blasted in the match winner when Petrekin's cross from the left fell for overlapping right-back Germaine Fogah. Staring down goalie Gibson's throat, he didn't control properly but that was probably a blessing in disguise as his cross was met mid-air by Thompson, whose volley gave the Norman Manley 'keeper no chance.
Norman Manley enjoyed better possession in the second half but stout defending and goalie Evans skills kept them out.
Coach Alrick Clarke said his team was not focussed.
"They're not prepared mentally," he said, commenting on his side, which was reduced to 10 five minutes from time after Courtney Williams was ejected on a second offence.
"I try, but their minds are centred on other things," he added. "As you can see, the squad is down to 13. I had to get rid of some of them. They have girls and other things on their minds."
