Union Sam­ba forged ahead of the oth­er teams in the South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (SFA) Big Four Round Robin Tour­na­ment with a 3-2 tri­umph over Pitch­men at Skin­ner Park in San Fer­nan­do on Sat­ur­day (Oc­to­ber 26) night. 

The oth­er Big Four con­test be­tween Union Hall Unit­ed and Mas­call FA end­ed in a 3-3 tie at the same venue. 

With the win­ner to be de­ter­mined by the team with the most points af­ter three match­es each, the win left the Sam­ba men on three points while Unit­ed and Mas­call FA have a point each. Pitch­men will have the most work to do with ze­ro points. 

In the open­ing match of the dou­ble­head­er, Ja­mali Bar­clay fired the Sam­ba men ahead in a tense bat­tle to give his team the ad­van­tage in the 31st minute. Cap­tain Irvin Williams left his mark­er be­hind with a sud­den burst of speed that took him by­line. And when he cen­tred, Bar­clay was right on the spot to hit the ball firm­ly past the strand­ed goal­keep­er for the 1-0 lead. 

Lat­er, Williams again used his speed to push his team two goals ahead in the 39th minute. Though chal­lenged by a crowd of de­fend­ers, the tow­er­ing Union Sam­ba mid­field­er forced his way in­side the goal area be­fore slot­ting the ball be­yond the grasp of the ad­vanc­ing Pitch­men cus­to­di­an. 

Lead­ing 2-0 af­ter the half­time in­ter­val, the Pitch­men re­duced the score­line when Aki­no­la Gre­go­ry raced in­to the penal­ty area to con­nect on a left-side cross in the 76th minute. With the goal lift­ing their con­fi­dence, the La Brea men tried for the equal­is­ing item in the mo­ments that fol­lowed but in­stead con­ced­ed a third goal. 

This time Dick made no mis­take from the penal­ty spot for a 3-1 score­line that pushed them ahead by two goals. The Pitch­men though had the last say three min­utes in­to time added on. 

From an in­fringe­ment that forced the ref­er­ee to point to the penal­ty spot, Nathaniel Dy­er stepped up and sent the goalie in the wrong di­rec­tion. But though the goal re­duced the score by one, it was Union Sam­ba that left the field cel­e­brat­ing. 

In the oth­er match, Je­quan Bai­ley scored a dou­ble strike to push Union Hall Unit­ed ahead in the 12th and 16th min­utes. The diminu­tive strik­er was first served a ball down the left flank, where he had the space to cut in­side to hit the ball low be­tween the legs of the Mas­call FA goal­keep­er. 

Lat­er, Bai­ley raced on to an­oth­er through ball but re­ceived much-need­ed help when the goal­keep­er al­lowed the ball to fall through his hands, and Bai­ley had the sim­ple task of hit­ting the ball in­to the emp­ty net. 

How­ev­er, Matthew Lee Cum­mings lev­elled the scores with penal­ties in the 31st and 60th min­utes. 

Dur­ing the run of play, the ad­van­tage swung back in­to Unit­ed’s favour when lanky de­fend­er Je­re­mi­ah cap­i­talised on a mix-up be­tween the Mas­call de­fend­er and goal­keep­er, and he fired the loose ball in­to the emp­ty net for a 3-2 lead. 

The game seemed to be head­ing for a 3-2 win for Unit­ed when a thump­ing shot from Williams took a de­flec­tion off a de­fend­er and flew in­to the Unit­ed goal for a 3-3 re­sult.