Cynosure Football Club of Abakaliki hosted and won the South East, South South pre-season football tournament after defeating Abia Warriors football club of Umuahia 1-0 in the final.
Spectators were still making their way into the Pa Ngele Oruta Stadium when Cynosure raised the curtains through Daberechi Anyanwu who capitalised on some school boy defending of his opponents to punish them.
Incidentally, that was the first time the Umuahia lads conceded at the tournament and it later ptoved to be the winner.
Hopes were high that the Warriors, who beat Cynosure 2-0 in a group game earlier in the competition will equalise and probably go ahead to win.
However, such assumptions turned into a mirage as the amateur side defended stoutly until the referee sounded the last blast of his whistle.
In winning the trophy, Cynosure, achieved the feat of ensuring they stopped the so called Premier League sides, Heartland of Owerri, Rivers United of Port Harcourt and Abia Warriors at different stages of the tournament.
The game was highly physical forcing the centre referee to use his yellow card frequently on both sides.
As the game wore on, and the Abakaliki side still leading, Abia Warriors gaffer, Adenrele Moses threw in everything he had in the attack as he introduced Nwuju Stanley, Amos Ogbuagu, Williams Nmesirionye and Paul Samson.
The ploy seemed to work out as Nmesirionye twice had the ball inside the Cynosure net all in the dying minutes only for the goals to be ruled out by the arbiters.
The second one, a glancing header from a free kick caused some uproar as the Warriors players and bench sincerely believed the goal should have stood but the referee stood his ground.
Calm was later restored and Cynosure held on to make history.
Scorer of the final goal, Daberechi Anyanwu emerged as the *Most Valuable Player* of the tournament while Abia Warriors’ Nwuju Stanley won the *top scorer’s* award.
The two awards were sponsored by Carl Academy and Football College, Umuahia who partnered with the organizers to make the tournament more interesting.
