Excelsior Sports Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 23: Outplaying the formidable side of Jammu and Kashmir Bank team in an exciting contest via tie-breaker by four goals to three (4-3) in the summit clash, the strong team of J&K Forest lifted the title trophy of the 4th Rajiv Gandhi Gold Cup Football Tournament, organized by All J&K Indira Gandhi Peoples Association, under the supervision of its president Narinder Gupta at GGM Science College Hostel Ground, here.
Earlier, the match ended in a goalless draw in the stipulated time and was decided in the tie-breaker via sudden-death. In the allotted time, the players of both the teams, though displayed superb soccer skills and countered each others ploy and tactics, yet failed to score any goal and it was only through tie-breaker that the Forest team got through. The goal scorers for J&K Forest were Shahid, Naseer, Mansoor and Azhar, while Rohit Kumar, Aman Thapa and Daniel Azi netted goals for J&K Bank. Ashiq, Umar and Javaid missed the target for Forest team in the tie-breaker, while Prem Kumar, Aman Thapa, Vijay Kumar and Vikramjeet Singh failed to score goals for J&K Bank.
Prem Kumar, Zubair Shah and Aiman Rashid were shown yellow cards for foul play in 39th, 67th and 93rd minutes from J&K Bank team, while Ashiq, Mansoor and Arshad were shown the same in 13th, 65th and 79th minutes of the play respectively.
The match was officiated by Moon Stephen, Suresh Kumar Gupta, Vijay Kumar and Rohit Kumar Gupta.
Minister for Sports, Taj Mohi-ud-Din was the chief guest on the valedictory function, while Saif-ud-Din Soz, president J&K Pradesh Congress Committee presided over the function. The chief guest later-on distributed prizes among the winners and runners-up teams.
Prominent among others present on the occasion were Arvind Gupta, Suresh Chug, Tamana, Dr Nirmolak Singh, Kuldeep Singh and Surinder Singh Bunty.