Fa­ti­ma Col­lege re­tained their Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) sea­son-open­ing Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) Cup with a 4-2 penal­ty-kicks win over St Bene­dict's Col­lege af­ter a 0-0 draw at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, Fri­day.

With the win, Fa­ti­ma cap­tured its first ti­tle un­der debu­tant coach Ker­dyn Moore, who was pro­mot­ed to the Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion coach­ing po­si­tion af­ter the sack­ing of for­mer Strike Squad mid­field­er Hut­son Charles, who, apart from lift­ing the school from rel­e­ga­tion in 2018, led the school to mul­ti­ple ti­tles there­after, in­clu­sive of the Na­tion­al In­ter­col crown as well as two Pre­mier Di­vi­sion ti­tles in the past three years.

Last sea­son, at the con­clu­sion of the 2024 SS­FL cam­paign, the then Hut­son Charles-coached Fa­ti­ma Col­lege (38 points) was of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised as the league cham­pi­ons, thus re­tain­ing the ti­tle they won in 2023. Mean­while, Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do (35 points), was the run­ner-up, fol­lowed by St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege (33 points) in third place.

This was af­ter the SS­FL ruled that its 2024 top scor­er, Der­rell “Zoom Zoom” Gar­cia, was not a bona fide stu­dent at St Bene­dict’s Col­lege when he played four match­es at the be­gin­ning of the 2024 sea­son. Based on the rul­ing, the un­beat­en “La Ro­maine Li­ons” were docked 12 points while be­ing de­mot­ed from first to fourth place, with 29 points. The rul­ing con­firmed that St Bene­dict’s was stripped of vic­to­ries against San Juan North Sec­ondary (1-0), Fa­ti­ma Col­lege (3-1), St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege (2-1), and Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege (2-1).

To­day, the first full round of match­es in the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion will take place with Fa­ti­ma, St Bene­dict’s, St An­tho­ny’s, and Pre­sen­ta­tion San Fer­nan­do not in ac­tion.

Fa­ti­ma, who won the NGC Cup against Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege 2-1 last year, will kick off its bid for a third straight SS­FL Boys’ Pre­mier Di­vi­sion ti­tle away to Scar­bor­ough Sec­ondary on Wednes­day, while St Bene­dict’s will be at home to QRC in their first league match on the same day. The 15th and fi­nal round of SS­FL match­es in the new sea­son is card­ed for No­vem­ber 4.

Pleas­antville girls edge St Joseph's Con­vent for Su­per Cup

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary kicked off the in­au­gur­al SS­FL Girls’ Pre­mier­ship Di­vi­sion with a hard-fought 2-1 win over St Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain to claim the Su­per Cup.

For Pleas­antville Sec­ondary, the Na­tion­al Girls’ Big-Five cham­pi­on, reign­ing SS­FL Girls "Play­er of the Year" Niki­ta Go­sine opened the scor­ing for the Bri­an Lon­don-coached south­ern­ers as ear­ly as the sixth minute be­fore Zara Chase dou­bled the lead for a com­fort­able 2-0 ad­van­tage at the half-time in­ter­val.

In the sec­ond half, the Tasha St Louis-Joseph-coached Girls’ In­ter­col ti­tle-hold­er, St Joseph’s Con­vent, start­ed much brighter than the first half and man­aged to pull a goal back through Syd­ney Pol­lard in the 55th minute.

How­ev­er, in the end, Pleas­antville was able to hold on to its slen­der lead to take home the three points.

In ad­di­tion to Pleas­antville Sec­ondary (South Zone) and St Joseph’s Con­vent Port-of-Spain (North Zone), the oth­er teams com­pet­ing in the Girls SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion are Five Rivers Sec­ondary (East Zone), Mir­a­cle Min­istries Pen­te­costal High School (Cen­tral Zone), and Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary (To­ba­go Zone) who will com­pete on a home-and-away ba­sis.

The in­au­gur­al Girls' Pre­mier­ship is spon­sored by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion, with the “Big Five” be­ing spon­sored by First Cit­i­zens and Omega XL.

Fri­day's re­sults

Girls' SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion

Pleas­antville Sec­ondary 2 (Niki­ta Go­sine 6th, Zara Chase) vs St Joseph’s Con­vent PoS 1 (Syd­ney Pol­lard 55th)

Boys NGC Cup

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege 0 vs St Bene­dict’s Col­lege 0 - Fa­ti­ma Col­lege won 5-3 on penal­ty kicks

Sat­ur­day's match­es

SS­FL Boys Pre­mier Di­vi­sion Round One

All match­es kick off at 3.30 pm

• ↓Trin­i­ty Col­lege Mo­ka vs Cara­pichaima East, Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka,

• ↓St Au­gus­tine Sec vs Mal­ick Sec, St Au­gust Sec Ground, War­ren Street

• ↓San Juan North Sec vs Sig­nal Hill Sec, San Juan North Sec, San Juan

• ↓St Mary’s Col­lege vs Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege, St Mary’s Ground, St Clair

• ↓Na­pari­ma Col­lege vs Trin­i­ty Col­lege East, Lewis Street, San F’do

• ↓Scar­bor­ough Sec vs Ari­ma North Sec, Scar­bor­ough Sec. Grd.