Madushan’s hat-trick gives Joes thumping win over Bens
View(s):Powered by a hat-trick from striker Asela Madushan, St. Joseph’s College recorded a thumping 6-2 win against St. Benedict’s College to claim the Rev. Fr. Peter Pillai Memorial Trophy in their revived annual football encounter played at the Sugathadasa Stadium on Monday.
This match also coincided the Inter-School Under-19 Division I Football Championship 2017 as the curtain raiser game besides being a traditional game between the two schools. The Josephians struck twice soon after the kickoff when C.G. Pramantha and Chamath Rashmitha scored to put their team in front by 2-0 within eight minutes. The eventual winners carried forward their momentum to hold that lead right up to the halftime.
The winning Joes
After the turnaround star of the day Madushan hit his first goal, expanding St. Joseph’s lead to 3-0 by the 49th minute but ten minutes later St. Benedict’s scored two quickies off Sherwin Fernando and Shenal Kavinda as they trailed 2-3 with 20 minutes play remaining. But it was all the Bens could do, as Pramantha struck his second goal in the 73rd minute to put Joes further in front by 4-2. Three minutes later Madushan struck his second goal before scoring his hat-trick just before the final whistle as St. Joseph’s recorded a commanding 6-2 win to claim the trophy.
The traditional game was made possible as the two schools were included in the same group the respective Soccer Advisory Committees took up this chance to revive the traditional Joe-Ben encounter which has a history of more than 120 years and one of the oldest sporting event in the school’s sports calendar.
In the past the Josephian-Benedictine Football match was the glamour match in the school season and was a much look forwarded encounter for old boys and sports fans. According to records the inaugural match between the two schools was played in 1896, the year St. Joseph’s College was founded. The inaugural match was won by St. Joseph’s.
For the first 32 years of its existence St. Joseph’s reigned supreme in the school soccer season including a run of eight consecutive inter school championships in the 1920s. Their run was finally broken in 1928 when St. Benedict’s beat them at the Tamil Union grounds by 2-0. Incidentally it was the first time that St. Benedict’s had won this annual encounter. In fact up to World War II, the Benedictines were able to defeat their Darley road counterparts only thrice and that was in 1928, 1932, and 1935. Post World War II it was the Benedictines who dominated school football they recorded several victories in the annual encounter.
St. Joseph’s recorded their greatest margin of victory (6-0) in 1914 which is the biggest win in the annual soccer encounter, although St. Joseph’s had a 7-0 win in a Rockmount Cup fixture in 1963. They also won 5-0 in 1915, 1934 and 4-0 in 1964. Other good wins (3-0) registered by the Joes were in 1921, 1922, 1927 and 1957. The greatest margin of victory for St. Benedict’s was (5-1) in 1961 to be followed up by a similar victory in 1965. They won 4-0 in 1959 and 4 -1 in 1967 and also had three other (3-0) good wins in 1945, 1963 and 1968. Most other games were evenly matched with the decision going one way or other by narrow margins. The Chevalier John Rodrigo Memorial trophy was awarded for the first time in the history of the encounter in 1964. Joes led by Hesketh Kuruppu won this encounter by 4-0.
Unfortunately from the latter part of 70’s until 1994, there were no annual soccer encounters between the two sides, due to the fact that schools were more interested in tournaments rather than friendly annual fixtures. The annual fixture was revived again in 1995 and was played for Rev. Fr. Peter A. Pillai Trophy with the match ending in a 1-1 draw. The 1996 encounter which was the centennial encounter between both teams was well organised to raise the profile of the encounter as in past. The match was played under lights at the Sugathadasa Stadium with a large crowd in attendance. The Josephian team which was one of the successful school teams of all time trophy wise, as they had won the All-Island Schools Football Championship, National School Games Soccer Championship and Brazil Cup in the 1995/96 season went on to win by 4-1 to crown their season. Since the late 1990s the annual encounter was not played until last Monday, where the encounter will be continued annually. The Joes and Bens were led by third year coloursman Jason Fernando and Stephan Pillai respectively. - NA