Winning the first ever edition of The Gambia’s most prestigious domestic cup competition, Real de Banjul will be hoping for a deja vu when they entertain Red Hawks in the finals of the FF Cup competition in a year when the competition has also reached its golden jubilee. The match will be played at Bakau’s Independence Stadium on Sunday evening starting at 8pm.
In the maiden edition of the competition in the 1968/69 season, Real defeated the now defunct White Phantoms 4-2 in a game watched by a mere 700 people at Banjul’s Box Bar Mini Stadium. The Banjulians will be hoping that history will repeat itself when they face the giant killers of this year’s competition and with a place in the preliminary stages of the CAF Confederations Cup at stake, you can’t bet against them but Red Hawks would be no pushovers having defeated formidable oppositions in the earlier rounds of the competition.
According to Gambian football historian and ex-FIFA referee, Alhaji Ebrima Faye, that match 50 years ago was the first time in the annals of history in the country when a football match was commentated on radio by the Radio Gambia with a team of commentators led by the BBC’s Don Dyment and assisted by Sedi Jammeh, Sylass Jones and Sandigi Njie.
“The line-up for Real [that evening] was Saihou Njie at goal, a back-four of Ebou Joof, Thapa Conteh, Ablie Njie and Muntaga Gillen with Saihou Sarr, Musa Njie and Sam Sebi lining up in midfield. The front three was made up of Nyanga Sallah, Kebba Diaz and Sering Faye in a 4-3-3 formation. The first goal was scored by Kebba Diaz in the 16tgh minute of the first half,” Mr. Faye told www.gambiaff.org.